5 Billion Adolescent Girls can't be wrong?.....

Just read Twilight. Not bad, but not great. It picked up at the end but there was little suspense until the last third and the dialogue is so stiff and unrealistic. Quite a bit of over-writing, but the target audience might like that. I bought the second book and if that fails to thrill me I will stop there.

I am reading Patrica Cornwell's The Front now.

And I read this...

This is not a book. It's a blog post, but it has to do with books and what is in them. The comments are also enlightening.

http://jaslarue.blogspot.com/2008/07/uncle-bobbys-wedding.html

I have lost track... but I will try to re-start....

I am currently reading The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards. I picked up in Safeway from their book bin about 10 months ago for cheap and because the cover looked good. Finally got around to reading it. It has been slow going because of my trip.

Before the trip I read Careless in Red by Elizabeth George. It is her latest. I liked it. It was very thoughtful and follows Lynley's grieving after Helen's death. I recommend because I love Elizabeth George's writing, but you'd have to go back and read the rest of the series (or at least several of them) to understand a bit of it.

Don't worry, I haven't given up on books (as if!)....

I have just been too busy to blog about it. I know that I have been reading in the past little while. I will try to remember what I can. I read the first book in the Dexter series (the one the TV show is based upon - slightly different than the show - the books came first). It was alright. not as gory as I was worried about. I also re-read the first 4 Narnia books because Prince Caspian was released as a movie. Now I have to get to see the film. I am now reading The Two Minute Rule by Robert Crais. I just finished two others by him (The Forgotten Man and Demolition Angel). Fairly good procedural. Well written and interesting, developed characters. Good for the busy brain because of the pattern of the genre. I have the new Elizabeth George novel in my trunk so I will get to that when I am done this one.

How One Book Makes You Read Another...

I just finished reading Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte). I had never read it before. I mostly stayed away from those books unless I had to read one for an English class. My sister seemed to really like them (you know, the Bronte Sisters, Jane Austen...) so I figured they could be her kind of books. I read Pride and Prejudice because it was on the syllabus for first year English. It was okay, but never made me want to pull out any of the others by Austen. So, anyhow, I was reading the Jasper Fforde books and the first one, The Eyre Affair, has a lot to do with Jane Eyre so I kept thinking I should probably read it. When I was at Cole's, picking up some books for Mark, there was Jane Eyre, just waiting for me on the bargain stacks. It was alright and added much to the appreciation of The Eyre Affair. Now I am onto the next in the Jasper Fforde series and I am content. It seems to have a lot to do with Hamlet and I have already read that several times.

I do want to say that I have loved reading Edith Wharton for some time... but she was American so for some reason that made the difference for me.

I Don't Know How It Happened...

A year or so ago I picked up two interesting looking books that I found in a used book store. They were by Jasper Fforde. I meant to read them, but they went into the 'stack of books to read' and I forgot about them. Then, the other day, I packed up the first one and thought it would make a good 'car reading book'. It was The Eyre Affair. I LOVED IT! I quickly tore through the next book in the series and then when I was about 25 pages from the end of that one I drove to two book stores to find the next three books in the series. If you like books (and reading about books), if you like funny books (like Douglas Adams kind of stuff), if you have read a lot of books, particularly classics and you would enjoy reading about a universe where the Complete Works of Shakespeare is legally mandatory in all hotel rooms (right next to the Gideon's Bible, the Koran, and various other religious books), then you would like this series. I am halfway through the 3rd book (Well of Lost Plots) and very much enjoying it!

Change in Plans...

Okay, so I put Odalisque down and picked up Bones to Ashes by Kathy Reichs and whipped that off in two days. I needed a break from Stephenson because the writing is so dense. I have picked up Kim Edwards' The Memory Keeper's Daughter and hope that will move along as well. I will get back to Odalisque later.