Ten and Eleven

Have you noticed a pattern to my frenzied reading yet? I could be plowing through these Miss Read books, but I'd feel guilty for reading so many so quickly. So that I don't feel quite so guilty, I'm trying to read one by her, then one by someone else. It still feels like cheating when I'm reading James Rollins...

This time around, the Miss Read book was Mrs. Pringle. This book was delightful. Have I mentioned yet that it's all set in the English countryside? My mum says nothing changed from the time these stories were set until she was a girl growing up in Eastbourne. So really, reading the Miss Read books is almost like reading about my mum's life. I love it!

Then I read Ice Hunt by James Rollins. This is like his crossover book. It still follows the basic formula I was complaining about in my previous posting, but he's starting to move towards the type of story he tells in his Sigma Force books. You know, I complain about how he follows a formula, but the stories are riveting. Action packed. CRAZY imaginative. And scary in a Michael Crichtonesque sort of way. This one didn't disappoint.

9: Excavation by James Rollins

Last summer I discovered James Rollins. Fell madly in love with his books, which reminded me so much of a cross between Michael Crichton and Dan Brown. But the first books I read by him were from the Sigma Force series. Lately I've been reading his older books. And boy oh boy do they follow a formula:

• Archaeological team/scientific team/military team sent off to remote region to discover/investigate something.
• Unknown to them, there is a team of bad guys who are after the same information.
• Doubly unknown to them, the bad guys have paid off a member of their team.
• Triply unknown, there is some scary element of surprise awaiting them in the remote area (usually weird, albino, monster creatures).
• They become trapped. Usually underground.
• The bad guys are waiting for them above ground.
• The monsters are closing in on them underground.
• Someone dies, and is resurrected.
  
• Cheesy love story. With gross/unrealistic smoochy bits near end.
• Bad guys ALL die.
• Good guys lose one (usually heroic military type) guy and everyone else lives happily ever after.

Change the scenery around and everyone's hair/eye colour/and accent and you have a new book.

The stories themselves are interesting, if only they weren't so predictable.

7 & 8

I've been wanting to read PD James' The Private Patient for a while. I was hoping to get a copy of the book for Christmas, and when that didn't happen, I thought I'd get it at Costco. Of course the book was sold out and as the paper back is due out next month, the hardcover is nowhere to be seen.

That is until a copy of it mysteriously showed up at my place of work. I waited ten days, but when no one claimed the book, I borrowed - and devoured - it.

And it was marvellous. I love the Adam Dalgliesh mysteries. In fact, my only complaint was that it felt like goodbye. By the end it felt as if all the major character's lives had been tidily fixed. Which I suppose, as PD James is in her 89 year, might be appropriate.

The 8th book I've read this month is A Peaceful Retirement by Miss Read. Another lovely book. In fact, this might be my favorite so far. Good thing mum has more on order as I think I'm quite addicited...

1-6

Well, I only managed to read 50 books in 2008. My minimum goal is 50 books a year, so I just squeaked in. But in 2007 I read 54 so I've fallen behind. Luckily, I've already read 6 books this year (started book 7 this morning) so I might be able to beat my goal this year.

Books 1-3 were part of another trilogy called The Chronicles of Fairacre by Miss Read. The individual books are Village School, Village Diary, and Storm in the Village. My mum got me onto these books and they are such a refreshing change. A little like Bollywood movies...they're sappy sweet, full of old fashioned morals, and guaranteed not to have anything untoward.

Books 5 & 6 were also Miss Read books, Miss Clare Remembers and Emily Davis. I have 8 or more of these in my book cupboard and I'm highly looking forward to them.

Book 4 was Remember Me by Sophie Kinsella. She definitely follows a pattern in her books, but that doesn't make them any less loveable, just a little familiar.

47, 48. 49, 50

No time to comment, but here are some books I've read lately...

• Sandstorm by James Rollins
• The Summer that Never Was by Peter Robinson
  
• Christmas at Fairacres by Miss Read
  
• The Caxley Chronicles (which was three books in a collection, but I can't remember their individual names). Also by Miss Read
  

43, 44, 45 and 46

This is a book I forgot to blog. For some reason, though I hate reading nonfiction, I've never found it difficult to read about financial stuff. This was another good book, though Andrew and I both wondered if she was really writing a marriage book disguised as a finances book. Still, we've been trying to apply the principles and keep working on that aspect of our marriage.

I'm on a mission to read everything buy James Rollins. Now I'm wondering if I should pace myself. Don't get me wrong, this was another great book. It's just that the first two were so different from each other, and now the last two have been more of the same. Still great writing and great stories, just kind of similar. But then I reminded myself that the first book I read by him was actually his latest book (at the time) and it was completely different. So I'll keep reading...

This book was recommended to me by a friend who knows I like(d) Ted Dekker. I enjoyed Robert Liparulo's other two books, so I didn't even bother reading what this one was about before ordering it. Then it arrived and I read the praise on the inside cover. And I was scared. Gory. Thriller. Read it with the light on. Should I really be reading it?? But actually, apart from some gore which really was along the lines of the left behind books, this wasn't toooooooo bad. An interesting end times tale with a twist. And Liparulo is a very talented story teller. I'm very excited for his next book.

And now I'm off to bed to finish the last few pages of this one. I know! TWO non-fictions in less than six months! What's wrong with me?

41 & 42

After hearing so many comments about Dorothy Sayers' mysteries, I decided I needed to check one out for myself. One commentary warned that perhaps she was less popular than she should be due to the obscure references she makes in her stories.

I wonder if it's more likely due to the fact that she wrote closer to the other end of the 20th Century and so her books are a bit more difficult to read than say, oh most modern fiction. Not that I didn't enjoy Murder Must Advertise, it was a refreshingly different kind of mystery for me. Intelligent. Humorous. With a not-so-subtle commentary on society's consumerism. Actually, it surpised me how little the world has changed in the last 100 years.

There were enough references to Jeeves and Wooster that I've decided I definitely need to read some of P.G. Wodehouse's work and not just buy it for my brother. Oh. And I'm going to keep an eye out for more of Sayers' work too.

The other book I read was The Return Journey by Maeve Binchy. This was another anthology of short stories. I find these difficult at first because Binchy is so talented at characterization and story telling that is really hard to let go of the current story and move on to the next one. In her short stories I always feel like I've only just gotten to know the characters then I'm moving on to knew ones and new stories. Bleh. And yet I can't stop reading...