What’s happening to me? I’ve been a bookworm since, I don’t know, maybe second grade. I remember one summer, after second or third grade, when I would go to the kid’s fiction shelves in the small public library in our little Oklahoma town, and check out one Nancy Drew book at a time. Which I would usually read in a day, then take back and get the next book in the series. I’m not sure the librarian believed I’d really read them that fast. But I had. And that long-ago summer set the tone – and the pace – for the rest of my life. I’ve almost always had my nose in a book, and a bunch of books chronically clutter my home and my head.
So it should be a cakewalk for me to read 35 books this year. Right?
Not so fast. I think I’ve fallen victim to electronic-induced multitasking attention deficit, adult onset (EIMADAO). Or something else, since I just made up EIMADO so I probably can’t actually have it.
I now have a shorter attention span than I used to, for reading books. Or less patience for reading escapist crap. Or all of the above.
We’re well into the last part of January, and it’s time for a progress report on my 35 book assignment. I am not covered in glory here. I don’t think I can claim to have read a book if I haven’t read it completely. So I can’t claim those instructional books about the Nikon D5100 and Photoshop Elements 10, although by sheer size and weight they are very impressive. I’ve also dipped into nutrition books and cookbooks, and a couple of novels that after a chapter or two, I could not even pretend to want to finish. I’m also hanging out every few days with Listening to Your Life, by Frederick Buechner, which is wonderful company. It’s a book of 366 daily meditations, and I won’t be rushing to the finish line with it.
Which leaves me with this list of books read to date.
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, Anne Lamott. I did not rush through this book. I read it carefully, highlighted a lot (on my Kindle), quoted it at least once on facebook and more often to friends in conversations, and when I got to the end I started over at the beginning. To remind myself of what was in the first few chapters. Because I hadn’t rushed through it. See above. A keeper. Ten stars on a five-star scoring scale. A book I wish I’d read years ago, but I’m so happy I finally did that I forgive myself for the delay.
A Cry from the Dark, Robert Barnard. Barnard is one of my favorite writers of crime fiction, and has been for decades. He’s one of the few authors I still collect in hardcover. (The others include Peter Robinson, Andrew Taylor, and the late Michael Gilbert.) I still treasure the memory of meeting him at a signing at Murder by the Book several years ago. I’d read A Cry from the Dark a few years ago but enjoyed it more this time around. Bettina Whitelaw is now in her 70′s, and the successful author lives in London, a long way from her childhood in a dusty Australian outback town. When she’s targeted by intruders, it’s not known what they are after, or why. Is it related to her life in London or does it go back as far as Bundaroo?
Last Post, Robert Barnard. Eve McNabb’s mother has died. A letter addressed to her mother arrives, with no return address, and its contents strongly imply that her mother had an extramarital affair long ago. Eve tries to find out more about the mysterious letter writer, and her parents’ life. This leads her to an attractive policeman, to old people with memories and maybe axes to grind, and to a confrontation with the father she’d been told was dead. I’m still thinking about the final few paragraphs of this book. Cheap shot or masterstroke? Today I think the latter.
A Charitable Body. Barnard’s latest. Of course I liked it, because it features Charlie Peace and his wife Felicity. I had to suspend disbelief with a firm hand, but the unraveling of the Quarles family history in the last part of the book was clever.
Lessons from Madame Chic: The Top 20 Things I Learned While Living in Paris, Jennifer L. Scott. She was young, and impressionable, and tends to generalize too much. But I enjoyed this memoir anyway, for the “live well, avoid junk and clutter, and choose quality” philosophy. You can take that stuff too far, but at the time I needed to think about quality vs. quantity in my life and this book was helpful.
That’s all for now. Five books in 23 days? It will get me well past 35 books by December 31, but it’s not up to my usual pace at all.
Oh, Hugo. It’s magic. If you have to know, here’s a quick description from IMDb, which doesn’t even get to the magic stuff: “Set in 1930s Paris, an orphan who lives in the walls of a train station is wrapped up in a mystery involving his late father and an automaton.”
