Books I’m currently not reading
In the past three (four?) weeks I’ve managed to read only two books. Things have been busy with the little Zo monster, and I recently got asked to take on quite a bit of responsibilty at church, and the result is that my book time has been decreased. I did read both Kerry Greenwood’s Flying Too High and the first draft of Jamie S. Rich’s new novel Have You Seen the Horizon Lately. Greenwood’s book is everything I expected, characters that I love, nice mystery that tied up well. Jamie’s book was an interesting experience because it ties into his previous novels, and features Percy, the lesser seen brother of Lance and Tristan, two characters that I adore. That made for a strange experience, because as weird as it sounds, I feel like I know Lance and Tristan, and I barely knew Percy at all- maybe passed him in a hallway. So reading a book about him was like going on vacation with a friend of a friend– you’re not really sure how it’s going to go. But I’m pleased to report that it went swimmingly. Jamie does a fantastic job of making characters come alive, and Percy is now as real to me as his brothers, and his joy and pain are just as real. There are beautiful themes of searching for meaning, of redemption, of the power stories have to connect people. I can’t wait to see the final draft with the rough edges polished away, because there’s really a diamond in there.
But this post is titled “Books I’m currently not reading”, and I have a stack. I started Patrick Neate’s The London Pigeon Wars, and it still looks fascinating, but there appear to be two storylines, one with pigeons and one with people, and only the one with the pigeons was interesting me, and from the little bit I read it seemed to be more about the people. I may be wrong, and I’ll go back to it if I have it out of the library long enough.
I also have The Book of the Damned, by Tanith Lee, another one I started and put aside, and The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove by Christopher Moore. I always see Moore’s books and feel like I should read them, but I just can’t get started. I also have Soseki Natsume’s I am A Cat, which looks awesome.
The book I finally started reading today, and actually started reading out loud to Zo