I've always been a big reader but lately you wouldn't know it. Very often I take out books from the library and they sit, mostly untouched, until I return them unread with fines owing. I also buy books, usually when it's an author I really like and I'm pretty sure I'm gonna love the book. Those sit too. Probably because, since childhood I've had an irrational fear that I'd go to the library and there would be nothing there to read. I was so afraid that I'd read everything worth reading. As if!
This year I am starting a new list on my home computer of all the books that I'd like to read. I used to have a file of book reviews that sounded interesting in my desk (more protection against running out of reading material) but, due to a situation with a mouse, the file is gone. My new list will be mouse-proof. I am also hoping that it will be more of a living list with additions AND deletions as I read those books that sound interesting.
I've started the year with two very different books. The Night Gardener by George Pelecanos starts in 1985 with the murder of a young girl but most of the action takes place 20 years later after another teen is found dead under similar circumstances. On the surface this book is about the efforts of 3 men (one current and 2 former officers) to solve both crimes but the way that the author portrays Washington DC and the racial tension found there is what made this story come alive for me. I will definitely read more George Pelecanos soon.
Right now I'm reading Ernest Hemingway's To Have and Have Not. I picked it up when we visited Hemingway's house in Key West. I'm not sure what I expected but it wasn't this. I read half of it on the train ride home from New Jersey. I picked it up and just couldn't put it down. The language is easy even though it's a bit dated. The story is about Harry Morgan, a fishing boat captain struggling to take care of his family and the lengths to which he goes to earn a buck during hard times. It's set in Key West and, having been there recently is probably helping me connect with the story. It's pretty dark but I'm enjoying it.
So what are you reading?
Jan 29, 2007
What are you Reading?
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8 comments:
I can honestly say I've never read a book by Hemingway and enjoyed it. Maybe this one is different?
I'm reading a crappy mystery right now but when I'm finished I'm going to start Lalita Tademy's new one, Red River. Have you read Cane River, her first book? It was wonderful.
I just finished a good one - Last Town on Earth - it has gotten some press lately, and the author is from the DC area. It was about one small town's response to the 1917 Spanish flu epidemic. It was historical fiction. Next up: Emperor's Children... I need to hurry up and read it because there is a wait list at the library!
I hate to say it - but just magazines lately; my reading bug seems to have hit the skids lately. I do like to read out at the lake in the summer - but even that has been overshadowed by the knitting lately.
Last thing I read was Harry Potter 6
I'm reading Seat of the Soul, by Gary Zukav. As an Alexandria resident and Key West vacationer, I will be reading The Night Gardner and To Have or Have Not next. Love your Key West pix. I didn't get there last year and miss it.
I finished up 2006 with a great read that sounds similar to your mystery you described. It was called Blackwater. It is Swedish and a translation, but it was a very different sort of mystery that I found very interesting. Then I've read All Creatures Great and Small, good but can easily be enjoyed in tandem with something else I think. I also read a few mysteries - Copper Rive by William Kent Krueger, and The Blueberry Muffin Murder by Joanne Fluke. I definitely recommend WKK's Cork O'Conner series. Fluke's series is not nearly as good of a culinary mystery series as Diane Mott Davidson. In fact, I only enjoy them because of how Fluke nails the personalities of small town MN residents.
I just finished a fluffy, easy read, called "Why Girls are Weird." I felt like I was 16 while reading it, but it went fast and I didn't have to think too hard. I need something better!
thanks for the new author. I am a big reader as well - currently reading Sharon Shinn's Angelica. it's great.
I've been on an audiobook kick lately and have listened (and knit to!) some wonderful things lately: "To Kill A Mockingbird" (read by Sissy Spacek) "Persuasion" (Jane Austen, read by Greta Scacchi), and "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" (Carson McCullers, read by Cherry Jones). In "real" books just read "March" by Gwendolyn Brooks, about what happens to the Father in "Little Women" while he's away at war. Incredibly moving.
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