romantic comedy

“I don’t mean to bother you,” the question usually begins, “but I’m looking for my next book, and I just don’t know what I want to read.” Honestly, that question is one of our favorites to get in days that are often filled with new card sign-ups and telling people where the restroom is.

The most challenging requests are usually from voracious readers because, well, they’ve read most of the usual culprits already. And while sometimes we magically have the perfect title stashed in our figurative back pocket for just such an occasion, even our magic runs out sometimes. For those situations, we

I've reread Mariana Zapata's The Wall of Winnipeg and Me more times than I could count and I've laughed out loud every single time. This quirky romantic comedy tells the story of Vanessa, the ex-assistant/housekeeper/fairy godmother to Aiden, the top defensive end of the National Football Organization. For the two years that Vanessa worked for the man known as "The Wall of Winnipeg," he lived and breathed football, leaving no room for common decency or polite human interaction with Vanessa. Now? Now, he’s asking for the unthinkable and she can’t believe she’s actually considering his offer.

Z

Long before Samantha and Darrin, there were Gillian and Shep. Bell, Book and Candle (1958) is a romantic comedy directed by Richard Quine and is based on the successful Broadway play by John Van Druten. The film stars Kim Novak as the brash, sexy siren Gillian Holroyd. Jimmy Stewart plays the mild-mannered upstairs neighbor, Shep Henderson,  lured in by her spell. Blithely seducing Shep away from an old college nemesis, Gillian finds herself caught in a web of her own making. Soon she must decide: Is love worth losing everything?

This beautifully restored film (released on DVD in 1999) is

Midnight in Paris is a movie that stayed with me long after viewing.  It is a sweet romantic comedy/fantasy starring Owen Wilson who is perfect as stand in for Woody Allen. Playing the part of screenwriter Gil Pender, he is on vacation in Paris with his materialistic fiancé and her like-minded parents. Though they seem to love each other, he is gradually realizing their differences, subtle though they seem at first. For instance, getting wet and walking in the rain in Paris holds no interest for her while he feels this would be the perfect romantic Paris experience.  While she and her parents