I had been without a book to read at bedtime for a few nights, so when I was over at my friend Jordan’s house, I asked if she had anything I could borrow. For light reading. Before bed.

I guess we have different views on light reading because first, she gave me a collection of Milan Kundera short stories.

Milan Kundera is described on the back of the little tome Jordan thrust into my hands as “an intellectual heavyweight and pure literary virtuoso” who “takes some of Freud’s most cherished complexes and irreverently whirls them about in acts of legerdemain that capture our darkest, deepest, human passions.”

God.

I was just looking for a little Shopaholic and Sister to fill those moments before exhaustion takes over.

“Um,” I said, “don’t you have anything else?”

She perused her shelf, skipping over volumes until she landed on something that excited her very much.

“Oh this!” she exclaimed. “Have you read As Nature Made Him?! It’s about twins, and when one of them was getting circumcised, the knife slipped and he was castrated. It’s SO good! You HAVE to take it.”

“Um.”

“No REALLY. It’s SO interesting!”

So, I did take both books because saying no thanks to Jordan is pretty much impossible, but I am telling you right now: I’m not going to read them. I stopped at Target and picked up Eat, Pray, Love. It’s a little deeper than Shopaholic, but at least there are no genital mutilations.