And to all, a good night...

This will probably be my last post for 2010 as I’m away on vacation until the end of the year.

This has been a great year for reading. However as you can tell from the sidebar I didn’t come anywhere close to reading 100 books ins 2010! But it was fun trying. My favourite books read this year were The Heart Mender by Andy Andrews and the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Many people on my list will be getting these books for Christmas.

I’m taking 3 books on vacation with me and I’m a little worried that it’s not enough books to bring along. But since I don’t have an e-reader yet it will have to do.

I’ll be back in 2011 reading and reviewing books. Until then, have a very Merry Christmas and may many good books be under your tree waiting to be read.

Painted Ladies by Robert Parker

Thanks to Penguin books, I received a copy of Robert Parker’s Painted Ladies to review.

Spenser is hired to protect an art historian. A painting has been stolen and the ransom is being paid. Spenser is to protect the historian as he makes the trade. Unfortunately for the historian, Spenser is not able to do this and a bomb blows up the art and the professor. This doesn’t sit well with Spenser who takes his job seriously and he now is on the hunt to find out who killed Dr. Prince and why.

This is vintage Robert Parker. There is a lot of dialogue. In fact the book is mostly dialogue. There’s very little description or introspection. It almost reads like a script without the stage directions. Which makes me wonder if it will end up as a TV movie of the week? At times I got a little tired of the short, snappy dialogue that often lacked pronouns or adjectives. But Spenser is witty, lovable, and intelligent often surprising people with his literary quotes. His love interest is a psychologist and this allows Parker to provide ongoing insights into the psyche of the various characters, including Spenser. This is an entertaining read and worth adding to your collection.

Sadly Robert Parker passed away in January at the age of 77. He was a prolific writer, writing both crime and western novels. I’ve enjoyed reading both the Spenser and Jesse Stone series. He will be missed.

The pleasure of being read to

I was just reading on another blog about a mother’s experience in reading the Harry Potter series to her child. And I got a funny nostalgic feeling about that. I don’t have kids of my own but I have read many a book to my friends’ children. One of my favourite memories of my soon to be married niece is her 4 year old skepticism that I would know the words of the book her mother gave me to read to her.

But I think what made me nostalgic is thinking about being read to; someone taking the time to sit down and read me a story. I don’t have a lot of childhood memories but one that does stick out is that my elementary school teacher used to read to us after lunch, probably in a vain attempt to calm us down. I don’t remember this but my mom says she finally had to stop reading the 3 Little Pigs book to me as I got so upset every time the wolf showed up.

As adults we don’t really get read to. I suppose the closest thing would be books on tape but somehow that doesn’t seem to have the same warm, fuzzy feeling.

So in this busy month coming up if someone says to you “read me a story”, my advice is to stop what you’re doing, read and create some memories.