Monday started for me with the clock radio bringing the news into my bedroom at 6.30 am and then continued with me rolling over and going back to sleep because I don’t go to work on Mondays. It is because of this late start that I allowed myself to stay up after midnight finishing my book on Sunday night so technically I started Monday by reading and later this evening I intend to finish it the same way !
The book I was reading was Arrowood by Mick Finlay. This is an historic crime novel set in London at the same time as Sherlock Holmes. I quite enjoyed it although I felt that the rants that the main character makes about Holmes, while funny and clever, were also overdone. I wasn’t sure whether or not buy the next in the series but discovered that at the moment it is only 99p on Kindle. This meant that I cleared one book from my to-be-read pile/list only to add one !
Reading Twitter over breakfast I saw references to an urban fantasy novel I hadn’t heard of before. I am a great fan of this type of fantasy and was rather intrigued by the blurb. As a result, I bought a copy of Dirty Magic by Jaye Wells. You don’t need to point out that this is not helping the to-be-read situation !
I treated myself to a bath during the morning. I like to read in my baths which is why I bought my Oasis Kindle which is waterproof. Today I decided to read a paper book. Paper books are not waterproof and I have dropped a few in the water in my time but I don’t do it very often and as most of my books come from charity shops and are not at all valuable I usually take the risk. I am reading Presumed Dead by Mason Cross. This is a thriller/crime novel set in a small American town where a serial killer in the past seems to have returned and the series main character Carter Blake, who specialises in finding missing people, is called in to help investigate. I quite like this author’s books and have read a few of them. I read a chunk of this one in the bath and finished the novel later in the afternoon. I won’t be keeping this book but have put it aside for a friend who particularly enjoys this type of story.
Part of my activity today was to take three or four novels I don’t want any more to the book table in our local Sainsbury’s. This is a great feature and a reason why I often call into the branch (that and the toasted teacakes). They do collect money for local charities and they often have books that I enjoy there – I am assuming that other people who visit the store must have a similar preference in books. I took in four books but “accidently” came away with two ! These were Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward which is a book about poverty and racism in contemporary America and which has been compared with Beloved by Tomi Morrison which I have read, and The Ice Princess by Camilla Lackberg which is a crime thriller set in Sweden. I don’t know very much about either of these books but they looked interesting and were obtainable for a small donation to charity.
I also took a bag of unwanted items into a local charity shop and came out with Life Class by Pat Barker. I enjoyed her Regeneration trilogy and I note that this book is the first in another series of three. It is also set in World War I.
I am pleased to say that I haven’t added any more than that to my to-be-read pile/list today. I spent some time this afternoon continuing to read Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames. This is my current Kindle book and is a fantasy novel about a band of mercenaries who get together again to do one last job. It is not a particularly original novel as I have read others which are similar but it is good natured and fun to read and I do enjoy the idea of getting the band back together again to face insurmountable odds and then overcoming them.
My current audiobook is Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. This is a very, very long book which I have been listening to for about three weeks and am just past half way through. I am positive that I would never have read this in print but am finding it strangely compelling on audio. It is a political book written to make a point about capitalism and socialism. I completely disagree with the author’s point of view but I am finding the narrative strangely gripping. I listened to the book when driving today and as background when doing a bit of cleaning and was pleased to have listened to another 1.5 hours although there is still plenty to go !
I jotted up my reading/listening time today and it came to about 5.5 hours. This is obviously unusual as it is my day off work – tomorrow is likely to be very different. I finished two books, read some of another two, and purchased five. If I ever want to find out why my reservoir of unread books keeps growing then today’s experience tells me everything that I need to know.
I have a little bit of time now before bed so I might read a few chapters.
Keep reading !
Anne Is Reading 