I am ripping through Val McDermid’s Wire in the Blood. It’s sort of horrifying, but not exactly subtle. I expected more nuance (a complaint I have had with the other two McDermid books I have read – and nonetheless enjoyed), which, again, isn’t to say I am not completely engrossed. I am. So engrossed that the last fifty pages of Street of a Thousand Blossoms (a book I liked very much and can recommend as an excellent read) are languishing unread on my nightstand.
I must make a run to the library to pick up my latest requests: Rebecca Mead’s One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding, Alan Moore’s From Hell (nice juxtaposition there, eh?), and Denise Mina’s Garnethill.
I still have Ha’penny waiting here for me to pick it up, if I ever finish plowing through Dorothy Sayers’ Whose Body? which I must confess I am not loving. I am finding Lord Peter MOST annoying. Why does he keep dropping the g’s at the end of his words? Is that supposed to be something aristocrats do? If it is, I am glad I don’t hang out with any (even though I have been made fun of for enunciating my ending g’s so hard as to make them sound like k’s; must be my lower-middle-class background...)
Meanwhile the new Richard Russo has suddenly sprung to my attention from the pile under my nightstand and is demanding to be read RIGHT NOW. Tut, tut, little book, there are library books ahead of you.
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*“...and which still has endless leisure to devote to nothing but banal enjoyments." Alexis de Tocqueville
6 comments:
I WANT to read the new Russo, but must finish an OLD one first. And all my unread library books are going back today. I'm being ruthless and trying only to read my own fiction till the end of the year. All the delicious cooking (Nigella Express!) and home decorating (Amy Butler Midwest) books I've ordered the library buy are, of course, exceptions.
I'm about a quarter of the way through Russo's newest and I constantly think about when I'll find my next reading opportunity...
I *think* that LP's G-dropping habit is meant to be an upper-crust affection. It's my impression that he deliberately tries to seem like a fool in order to get away with things. Whose Body? isn't one of the best - probably my least favorite. I like the next one - Clouds of Witness, and then Unnatural Death introduces the fab Miss Climpson. I hope you keep going.
Ha'Penny is still waiting for me, too.
Um, that would be affectation, not affection.
I agree with you about the McDermid stuff - it's worth wading throught the more visceral stuff because it is engrossing. I haven't read anything lately - maybe I'll add her to the library list.
Me? I'm astonished at how prescient de Tocqueville was about the Kennedys.
-J.
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