Just a little reading update today. I don't think I've been talking much about what I am reading other than the wonderful Kinsey Millhone books. I am now up to letter E. I just start it a couple of days ago, so there is just scene setting so far. It is Christmastime in Santa Teresa and Kinsey is on her own for the holiday. She doesn't seem to mind and tucks herself away with a good book for the holiday. She had started working on a seemingly easy claim job for California Fidelity--the insurance company she used to work for. She is writing up a report on a fire that occurred in a warehouse. It all seems pretty straightforward, but you know it is going to end up being complicated (and maybe even deadly).
While I know where I stand with Kinsey and am happy to be in her company, quite settled into the storytelling, loving the character, I have to say I am struggling a little with Hank Green's An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, which is the next B&N Book Club Read (and I need to finish reading by next Wednesday). Although I am beginning to warm up to the story I have been having a really difficult time connecting with the book. What do you do when a novel has gotten all kinds of really positive press and accolades and the reviews seem to be all five-stars? But you feel really tepid about the whole experience?
The story is perhaps a cautionary tale about what happens when you become the "It" person on social media. You know how things go viral? Well, in this story the two characters post a video on YouTube about a statue that appears in NYC--thinking it is just a fun thing to joke about. But then overnight it just takes off and the whole world is talking about the statues, which have appeared in more than 60 cities. So I totally get the premise and I even find it fairly appealing, but I guess I just want more "story" or more character development or something. So here is a story about social media, and I am lamenting reading it--on social media. The prose is very chatty and maybe a little slangy for my tastes. As I bailed out on the last book club book, I am going to try and persevere. It does read quickly and the story is moving along at a clip since there is the suggestion that maybe those statues are "external"--as in alien . . . As far fetched as that sounds, it actually makes it more interesting to me. So I keep reaching for it even as I am looking longingly at other books.
I forgot how good Josephine Tey is--I just finished an Inspector Grant mystery, which was this month's prompt, so I will have more to tell you about that in the next week or so. I need to get back to my vintage crime novel reading, I guess. I am also reading Anthony Quinn's Curtain Call which fits the prompt quite nicely, too. I have read him before and enjoyed his writing and he has several (I think three) books, starting with this one, which are loosely linked. As I have and want to read the lot of them I decided it was time to get moving on those (how many of these authors who revisit characters and that I 'mean to read' do I have on my shelves all neglected?--Here is one I am getting to anyway).
Speaking of prompts. My next one is "it was a dark and stormy night" but I am not terribly enthused by it. It's my own project so I should not feel guilty about changing it mid-stream, should I? Maybe I will pick something else. Some book with the color blue or green in the title. Or, any ideas? Throw some ideas out at me. I don't have a particular book in mind, but I want something fun that would inspire me to go searching my shelves!
I am reading a lot of crime novels at the moment. I am in the middle of Lou Berney's November Road which I have heard is "the" crime novel of the year. I am just getting to the part where two disparate characters (the criminal and an unhappy housewife) are about to cross paths and I can't wait as I expect the story will really take off then. I am enjoying it but I am waiting for that moment that sweeps me away. Alas, maybe my next prompt needs to be something the calls out for a book decidedly Not a crime novel or mystery!
I think what I really want to reach for but can't seem to squeeze in exactly is Kate Morton's The Clockmaker's Daughter, which I just barely started before I had to pick up my book club book. I like that one of the plotlines (this is one of those parallel stories story) concerns a young woman who works in an archive and comes across a satchel with a sketchbook in it--there is a story there, right? And I like that the story set back in time concerns a group of artists. I am intrigued that one of the narrators seems to be a ghost--well, that is what I am thinking she must be. I want to pick it up and spend an afternoon sorting through the story and getting into it properly, but the clock is ticking on other reads that need to be finished first.
I am hoping to carve out some serious reading time this weekend. I need to find a quiet corner with few distractions. I feel like life has been really busy lately and it has left me a little worn out, so when I do get down time and sit to relax, I relax myself to sleep! But we'll see what I can accomplish this weekend. Happy reading everyone!