I returned Mirabilis to the library today and was gratified to discover that My Favorite Librarian felt exactly the same way about it that I did. Isn’t it weird that I liked the characters and wanted to know what happened to them, but I didn’t find the book compelling enough to keep reading? I think that’s a weird trick; honestly, not every writer could pull that one off.
I was herding frogs, er, three small boys in the library, but managed to convey to MFL that I was in a reading slump and could she recommend anything. I returned downstairs to check out the boys’ stack of books (and a copy of The House of the Scorpion for me) and there was a pile of books awaiting me. Alas, I had already read Water for Elephants and A Spot of Bother (but see how good she is? I really liked both those books.); I have not read Gail Tsukiyama’s The Street of a Thousand Blossoms, so it came home with me.
I started Shirley Jackson’s Haunting of Hill House. I have the last Maisie Dobbs to read. The newest Richard Russo lies under my nightstand, beckoning seductively. I am enjoying Awakened by the Moon, a biography of Margaret Wise Brown but it’s not the sort of book you can just sit and read for hours. I pulled Jonathan Strange off my shelf after that spate of LibraryThing memes people have been posting.
I feel my reading mojo returning.
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* Austin Powers
8 comments:
I've been thinking about reading The Street of a Thousand Blossoms because I like the title. Let me know what you think of it.
I heart Shirley Jackson. My favorite of hers is We Have Always Lived in the Castle. No one does creepy/atmospheric like her!
Meanwhile I am STILL slogging through Middlesex. It's not that I don't like it; I do. It just hasn't grabbed me by the throat, and as a result I'm only reading like 2-3 pages a day. At this rate I might finish it by the time my first grandchild is in kindergarten.
I always liked Shirley Jackson. I'm glad you got your "reading mjo" back!
October is a good month for S.Jackson. I think I'll scare up my copy. I loved that book.
oooh, nice to see the Shirley Jackson love...I haven't read anything by here before but I just took Haunting of Hill House out of the library too in honor of Halloweeen.
Read your post, and away I flew to my public library's catalog, where I used my professional librarian skillz to search for "The Spot of a Thousand Bothers".
tgif
Good luck with Jonathan Strange. I couldn't get into that book at all.
I have this mad desire to read Jonathan Strange too, and Middlesex. Read The Haunting of Hill House last year and much preferred it over We have always lived at the castle.
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