summer reading list

this summer i've enjoyed several nice books and muddled through a few horid books.

i was delighted to discover jasper fforde's thursday next series. i read the first two books (the eyre affair and lost in a good book) in the series and have been waiting patiently for andrew to finish the third book (the well of lost plots). i am afraid, however, that as the series continues, it make take more and more work on my part to suspend disbelief. its all getting more and more far fetched, but in a terribly wonderfully creative way.

i adore most anything by neil gaiman and recently read one of his newer books 'interworld.' i enjoyed it thoroughly despite its brevity. also in the scifi/fantacy genre, i read 'andromeda strain.' i read it about two weeks before i heard about the A&E miniseries. the only thing i regretted about the book was that i didn't get to read it about thirty years ago. science has just changed so much since it was written. publishing must be like driving a new car off the lot. its instantly a used car or dated technology. however, if you've never read 'ender's game,' you really should. it was also written about thirty years ago but i swear, you'd never know it. though i suspect that will only be true for about another five years.

i've joined a murder/mystery book club at one of the local libraries.

oh, oh! as a side note, i've never lived in a town with so many library branches! and everytime i'm in one of them, i'm so happy to see so many other people. of all the places that i ever dreamed might support a great library system, las vegas was not at the top of that list. las vegas was not even on the list.

well, last month with the book club, we read one of kathy reichs' bones books. the bones tv show is based on the leading lady of this book series, but with a lot of adjustments to the setting and other characters. 'bones to ashes' was in the middle of the series but i still very much enjoyed it. it was hard to figure out a couple of things, but only because it was in the middle. if you'd read all the previous books then you would have known more about so many of the people/backgrounds in the book.

but the book club is a bit hit or miss. the book bofore bones was mostly ok. the next book is dorothy sayers' 'clouds of witness.' published in 1927, its a smidge out of date. there is nothing particularly wrong with it, its just really dry and long winded.

i picked up a couple of books from the thrift store for a quarter and just could not finish them. 'mist of prophecy' was one. i thought it was going to be a historical mystery with a smidge of romance. i suppose if i'd read any reviews of it, i wouldn't have bought it. but since i paid twenty five cents, i guess i got my monies worth.

i also bought 'dashing through the mall' which was actually three christmas oriented love stories. couples meet, they overcome odds, and fall in love. however, since the story only has about a hundred pages, it was kind of like a disney movie. it ends right at the falling in love point, and therefore never has those tedious getting to know you parts, or discovering you are human beings with bad breath or gas parts, or that maybe love was hard work parts. i didn't know it was three in one when i bought it. i finished the first story and may eventually read all three, but only on vacation or in an airport. not for serious reading or real entertainment.

i'm somewhat burnt out on patricia cornwell at the moment. i read 'black notice' which is about the sixth or seventh book in the kay scarpetta series. and i started 'the last precinct' but the series has just derailed so much. i may not be able to finish this one either.

and i'm currently about to finish a fairly trashy novel, 'head over heels.' i didn't realize it was going to be so trashy when i selected it. one of the groups i'm a memeber of did a book exchange. i think i gave up books much better than i took home, but that's just my opinion. anyway, 'head over heels' has a bit of mystery. or at least there is a murder to solve. and lots of people fall into lust. maybe be the end it will be into love, who knows for sure. i've got about a hundred pages left, anything could happen.

and andrew is reading a book about the cold war. i keep meaning to read something that will teach me something but, well, i'm done with school, and i guess just looking for something fun nowadays.

what are you reading right now?