“I create feelings in others that they themselves don’t understand.”*

When last I left you, lo, these many eons ago, I was reading The Sugar House, another Tess Monaghan mystery from Laura Lippman. I am two more down the line now, having ploughed through In a Strange City and now working on The Last Place. Tess continues to engage me, although I still think the actual mysteries are a tad weak. It doesn’t matter, the characters are interesting, and Tess grows with each novel. Plus, they are easily picked up and put down and picked up and put down and picked up and…you get the idea. (I think they would make fun movies, but trying to cast Crow is tough. Anyone who has read them, help me out, would you?)

A few years ago now, I whizzed through Neil Gaiman’s Sandman graphic novels, and have since proselytized about them to anyone and everyone I know with even half a brain (and I know lots of people with half brains, says the pot). But the graphic novel switch switched off until Gina lent me Bill Willingham’s Fables graphic novels. Not as intricate or deep as Sandman, they are nonetheless fun reads, and I read the first three on vacation. They ARE perfect vacation reading. The violence was gratuitous and the love story unbelievable (I fell madly in love with Gaiman’s Morpheus – what woman didn’t? but while I know I was supposed to be in love with Bigby Wolf, I most decidedly am not), but overall, they are great fun. I especially enjoy some of the more obscure Fables that show up – John Barleycorn and Bluebeard, for example. I just started the fourth, starring Little Boy Blue (yes, he of horn fame, who now auditions for gigs in NY blues clubs).

People, I cannot seem to finish City of Thieves even though I think it an admirably well-plotted and written book. I AM going to finish it if it kills me. WHAT is wrong with me? I am reading too many books at once, you suggest? Hmmm, well, possibly, as I am also halfway through the immensely enjoyable The Grand Sophy. Poppy’s most strongly suggested Georgette Heyer novel is like Jane Austen’s more fun, floofier novels (Emma, say, as opposed to S&S). And like every single creature in the novel, I myself am just an eensy bit in love with the irrepressible and vivacious Sophy.

Also, because I was too sore to walk up the steps after letting Jillian Michaels purportedly shred but actually kick my ass, I started Joanna Trollope’s newest, Friday Nights, which is coming along swimmingly if forgettably, just like every other Joanna Trollope novel I have ever read.

But wait, there’s more. To help Primo with his first-ever book report assignment, I am giggling and reading (and giggling some more) Eva Ibbotsen’s Which Witch? What a hoot!

In my next post: books I simply could not start, finish, or even think about any longer.

The End.

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*Lightning McQueen, "Cars"