Okay, Great House this is not. Eh on most of the stories. The first story in the collection features the fictional town of Templeton that is also the setting of Groff's first novel, The Monsters of Templeton. Which I loved. Wonderful, funny, weird novel. Very Lorrie Moore.

So maybe skip Delicate, Edible Birds? I do really love the title and cover except birds are a little ruined for me right now thanks to Nate and Claire showing us this little snippet from the show Portlandia. I can't help but snort when I watch this.

Now this is my kind of novel. You have to work for it a little. Great House follows four disparate characters in eight chapters that seem to be connected by more than a large, looming desk but it isn't until the very end of the novel that the connection becomes clear. Krauss writes of loss, regret, memory and shattered existence so well that I forget she can be so funny – see History of Love. Read Great House before it gets too spring-like outside (rain works well) and I promise this novel won't leave your memory soon.

Okay, I have been meaning to read A New Kind of Christian forever ago but then I read it and basically, I might as well have read it before as most of the content — Christianity in the post-modern world — has been covered elsewhere over the years. It felt ten years old (and it is!). And the premise: a fictional "conversation" between two friends is so gimmicky. But! Still some good, thought-provoking stuff here.

The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall was a Powell's Indiespensable selection that I just didn't get around to reading last year. Four wives + 28 children + economic hardship = complicated. And then maybe we should add another wife to the mix? Somehow along the line I began to care about this messy clan. A tad too long at 600 pages but very funny and insightful. And the author lives in Boise!