“Until the Real Thing Comes Along” By Elizabeth Berg (1999); 241 pages.

Started reading August 3, finished reading August 8 or 9.

Another perfect choice to read in less than a week. Shana, lender of many a wonderful book, gave this one to me in Baltimore and I flew through it (and no pun intended– but I was really on an airplane) in part because Ben’s DVD player is the Best Thing Ever Invented. For those of you who have traveled alone with small children, you will not even believe me: I read about 75 pages of this book on the plane, en route from Baltimore to Birmingham. While Ben watched 2 solid hours of recorded TV shows while wearing headphones. And trust me, we –and everyone near us on that Southwest plane– were all better for it.

So back to the book: While masquerading as chick lit, it turned out to be a sweet and beautifully written novel. Yes, its a fast read, and yes, there are baby feet on the cover… I also can’t deny that topic just screams “womens-lite-fiction” (woman with no significant-other wants baby, and in love with her gay best friend) so you probably wouldn’t be in the market for this one unless you like this kind of book to start with, in which case you won’t be disappointed. By the way, I also really liked Elizabeth Berg’s sort-of-recent book “Open House”, which falls into the same category of beautifully written and mostly geared to women. But with better cover art.