Despite having to deal with some near flooding caused by a combination of three days of heavy rain and a fencing company's incompetence (and their refusal to return phone calls), last week was still an enjoyable reading week. I finished up Holmes on the Range, The Reservoir, and my first Agatha Christie novel, A Murder Is Announced. I also made pretty good progress on a few others: Larry McMurtry: A Life and Michael Connelly's Resurrection Walk, plus two others that weren't even in the mix this time last week.
At a considerably slower pace, I'm also still reading in an out of The Blues Brothers, The Affair Next Door, Writing to Learn, Ruined by Reading, and What to Read. Two or three of the nine books in progress are likely to be finished this week, and I'll likely replace those with a couple of the ones I'm most anxious to get to next:
I'm looking forward to the week, and seeing what all of you are reading. I'm writing this early on Sunday afternoon, so I'll be coming by to see what you're talking about on your blogs after the football semifinal games are done. Have a great week, everybody.
Wish I had the time to read many books in a few days. I am still stuck with the same book, good though it is, while I also tackle sudoku, a puzzle, Netflix, and household duties. Have another good week.
ReplyDeleteIt's only being retired that allows me to read as much as I do these days. Honestly, that's the best thing about retirement, and I can't imagine doing it any other way. I am not a fast reader at all, and the way that my mind tends to stray sometimes, it takes me a while to finish most books.
DeleteI am retired, for four years now, but I cannot read as much as you do. And I don't keep up with all the everyday housekeeping and maintenance that I should. I definitely read (and write) slower than I used to. Oh well.
ReplyDeleteI have read four books by Ken Bruen and loved them all. Only one of them was a Jack Taylor book. The other three were Detective Sergeant Tom Brant books. I haven't one in years although I have some of them on my shelves.
I would like to read some of Michael Connelly's Lincoln Lawyer series or more of the Bosch books, but I end up picking other books instead.
For me, Tracy, what's really changed in the last couple of years is my ability to concentrate on just one thing for an extended period of time. That keeps getting more and more difficult for me to achieve, so I'm spending more actual time to read the same pages that I read much more quickly five years ago...all very frustrating.
DeleteI've mostly read the Jack Taylor books of Bruen's; that's such a dark character despite his good intentions that I'm kind of surprised that I took to it so quickly or for as long.
Bosch is at an interesting point in his life in this one, major health issues and aging issues to cope with, so it's good to see him pair up so well with his younger half-brother this way. Some hardcore fans of the Lincoln Lawyer character complained that there's too much Bosch in this one to suit them.
I'm glad it stopped at near-flooding... so much rain! Just learned about My Side of the River this past week and it sounds interesting. Hope you have a good week, Sam.
ReplyDeleteWe got about ten inches over three nights, but the problem was caused by a fencing company that messed up my drainage just a few days earlier. If we had gotten one of our tropical storms after their fiasco, there would have almost certainly been water in the house.
DeleteMy Side of the River is interesting even though at about the 40% mark there's nothing in it that has really surprised me. I'm curious to see how the memoir ends.
I'm looking forward to reading My Side of the River this year. And my mom just finished reading Resurrection Walk which she really enjoyed. I like Connelly's Lincoln Lawyer series as well as his Bosch mysteries, so that's another one I'm eager to read. Happy reading this week, Sam! :D
ReplyDeleteDo be sure to make time for Resurrection Walk, Lark, because it's a really good story for fans of the two characters (moves them along nicely) and the plot is an excellent one. I'll look forward to hearing what you thought of both books at some point.
DeleteI do read a lot but still behind on reviews.
ReplyDeleteThat's definitely a problem, Mystica, and sometimes I end up spending way too much time on the reviews. But I always remind myself that if I don't take the time to organize my thoughts properly, that I'll forget most of the book within days. This way, I remember most books pretty well, and for much longer.
DeleteHeavens, really glad you weren't flooded, Sam! Not great to have that to worry about. We actually have no rain here at the moment after what seems like months of it. Your reading's going well though, so that's something. I've dnfed three this week and finally settled on a cosy crime novel, not my usual go-to but it's suiting my mood at the moment.
ReplyDeleteWow, Cath, three DNFs in one week is a lot, isn't it? I did the same on three books in about the first 10 days of January but haven't done another since then. They do seem to come in streaks a lot of times, making me wonder if it's more a problem with me and my mood than it is with the books I quit on.
DeleteI ended up spending several hours digging out around the replacement fence between me and the house next door so that the potential flooding risk is eliminated...I hope. We lowered the ground level around the fence by about three inches, and that should do it. It was a huge mess...and I'm still sore. lol
My Side of the River does look like a worthwhile read. I'm on the wait list for it. And curious now to see the dangling participle sentence in it. I'm looking forward to your review & thoughts on it.
ReplyDeleteI'm reading an ARC, so I suspect that the dangling participle that made me laugh is long gone by now. There were a few other mistakes that needed some editing, too. I'm liking the memoir at about 75% through it now, but a little disappointed that Gutierrez overuses the "race card" and the like to justify several failures on the part of those crossing the southern border. That comes across as a little naive at times. But I can live with that because a first hand account of how she managed so long on her own is eye-opening.
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