First. Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris. Holy Crap. I finished it last night, and it was better than I anticipated. I knew it was good, but Harris threw me for a loop. If you haven't read this, you should. It isn't really a mystery, and it isn't really a suspense/thriller sort of novel. It is a story of revenge. It is perfectly plotted and deftly executed. And I do mean deftly. It started a little bit slow, but that's okay--she was working into the story. Near the end I thought I was almost going to be disappointed. Surely, I thought, the ending isn't going to be this easy. It's too obvious. Well, it wasn't. When the twist came, it nearly floored me. I didn't see it coming. It is one of the best contemporary novels of this sort I have read in a really long time. One of the blurbs on the back cover called it "surprising and wickedly fun", and I agree wholeheartedly. Now this is the sort of book where I feel totally satisfied upon finishing it. I feel like going back to the beginning and starting all over again to see how she did it!
Although I am now tempted to pull out another book by Harris (next month she has a new book out--a sequel to Chocolat called The Lollipop Shoes, I will keep with my plan to read one of my Viragos (and a book from The List). I've decided Elizabeth Von Arnim's Elizabeth and Her German Garden is just the thing for sunny (well today is rainy, but oh well) days. It's one of those "I'm finally getting to this one" books. I didn't realize that there is actually a sequel called The Solitary Summer, which I have splurged on and ordered.
I jettisoned The Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin. Nothing personal here, I just sort of lost interest. I noted the page I left off and maybe I will pick it up later. There are just too many other books (especially mysteries) that I want to read. Rather than drag my feet on something I am feeling tepid about at the moment, I'd rather be reading something I am excited about. I decided to try another library book, Consequences of Sin by Clare Langley-Hawthorne. Only a chapter in and I am already feeling that this is more to my tastes at the moment. It is set in England in 1910, and the heroine is an Oxford graduate and a suffragette. I like it already. Iliana recently reviewed it, and she also compared it to Maisie Dobbs. This is enough to recommend it to me.
Sorry, I feel like I am just rehashing my post of a few days ago (I did name this post mindless ramblings!). The time I would normally have spent planning out a more thoughtful post last night was instead spent browsing AbeBooks. Thanks to Isabel's comment on Sunday's post about Viragos. I do work in a library. You would think I would know how to successfully search the various out of print book sites. I have checked Alibris, but I guess I really didn't look at AbeBooks. And I always tend to search for Virago as a publisher, when in fact you get many more hits using the word "virago" as a keyword. Yes, Viragos for $1! If you limit your search to one country and even to a particular state, you can choose books from one or two bookstores. This saves a little on postage. Postage is always where the money comes in, doesn't it. But with so many titles so cheap, even with postage, the price is about the same as what I would pay in my local used bookstore for a Virago. I am not overly particular--as long as the copy is in reasonable condition, I don't expect to find them new and pristine. This could be dangerous. I have been very bad about ordering books online, so I need to resist looking for a while. At least I will have a couple good weeks of mail to look forward to.