Reading Material

This last week's reads and abandons

I’m fairly sure that I didn’t learn an important life lesson until oh, about fifteen years ago. Sure, there are others I may have learned even more recently, but this one was how to quit a book. I’ve been a voracious reader since the beginning (Mom says I was reading around 4, but she isn’t sure when I started, this is what you get when you read books out loud to your children starting before birth. But I digress) and have a swift reading speed. Not sure what it is now, but the last time I was tested, about 1200 wpm. I’ve slowed down, since then. My point is that I read a lot, I used to read through a novel in about two hours, and then I would run out of reading material.

Until I read slush for Baen. That was when I learned to give myself permission to leave a book unfinished. These days, with Kindle Unlimited, it can feel like reading slush all the time. Which… on one hand, the authors are getting paid, yay? On the other hand, dredging for jewels is time consuming and time is something I ain’t got. I rely on recommendations and also-bots to find new authors, when I go looking. If I’m not feeling well, I just re-read old favorites.

So! This last week or so I was feeling exploratory. I had gone through all of DE Stevenson’s books not long ago, discovered her friend and neighbor Molly Clavering with delight, dabbled with Anthony Trollope as source material they mention in their books and discovered that he is tedious in the extreme with convoluted over-dramatic plots that feel cobweb-thin. (Read: The Bertams, but do not recommend. DNF: Barchester Towers)

From there, I tried Elisabeth Cadell, who wrote mod-romance novels set in the later 50s into the 60s. I enjoyed The Friendly Air, which is a romp of a romance that afficianados of Hallmark Movie plots may recognize as a possible genesis for those, only not watered down through the ensuing decades. However, I gave up (DNF: Did not finish) on The Corner Shop as the main characters both made me want to slap them and the only sensible people in the book were the farm children. A book by Elizabeth Fair, The Marble Staircase, was recommended by the also-bot, and I found it muddled. However, the real reason I DNF was personal - I could smell the mold and mildrew of the neglected house described in it, and found that very depressing and then I went and took a nice hot shower. Ugh.

I started working through Creative Perspective for Artists and Illustrators, but this will be a lengthy process with practice on sketchpaper, so it may take me months to finish. Still, it’s already interesting and helpful, as so many of the Dover reprints are.

I’ve also been dipping into R.V. Jones’ Most Secret War, which is very interesting with a perspective on World War II that is uncommonly written of. As a scientist, I’m finding it intriguing to see how many ‘Death Ray’ plans were floated and discarded before and during the war. As an author, I am taking my time with the read because I am not sure if it will serve for research for the project I’d wanted it for.

I returned to fiction for a lighter note, reading Anthony Berkeley’s The Layton Court Mystery, which had a very interesting outcome, nonetheless satisfying for my having sussed out both whodunnit, and why, fairly early in the book. There was enough doubt and red herrings, not to mention the zany antics of the sleuths, to keep me reading on.

Finally, I had picked up Magatte Wade’s The Heart of a Cheetah on Alma Boykin’s recommendation and have very much enjoyed it. It’s insightful, and inspiring, and gave me some interesting ideas. I also recommend it, even if you don’t have any intentions of becoming an entrepreneur. It shows the inevitable result of overly interfering government and what that does to the economy of a nation, indeed, even a whole continent. Even better, it gives hope to find a way out of that mess.

This next week I’ll likely be reading Matt Thornton’s The Gift of Violence, more of the Anthony Berkeley collection as a palate cleanser, and perhaps Creatures Born of Mud and Slime by Daryn Lehoux. I’ve also picked up Tim Powers’ On Stranger Tides, but haven’t been in the mood. May go back to Brit mysteries for a while and pick up some of my paper collection.

What are you reading? What have you loved recently? Why do you not finish a book?