Lucky Me

I'm very lucky: I get to read for a living. Oh, sure, the subject matter I read most days isn't what I'd choose to read (I'm managing editor for a couple of high-tech trade magazines.... Network Computing, Secure Enterprise...). But I get to work with words and read. And I love to read.

I used to read approximately 2 novels a week. I don't do as well now ... not with two boys, a husband, four cats, a full-time job, a really, really messy apartment, and my new-found knitting, crocheting and playing with my iPod hobbies (not to mention reading other people's blogs). But I have read and am reading a bunch of good books. I think this is nearly a complete list of what I've read this year:

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry and the Half-Blood Prince, all by J.K. Rowling. I re-read Goblet and Phoenx, actually, so that I would remember what was going on before Prince came out. I know many are disappointed by the latest book. Too much snogging. Not enough plot. But I love Harry.

A Question of Blood and Fleshmarket Alley, by my favorite author Ian Rankin. These are mysteries in the sub-genre of police procedurals (made famous by Ed McBain, who sadly passed away recently). I LOVE Ian Rankin. His protagonist -- John Rebus -- is a Scottish police detective (I'm not sure what the right term is) who is often depressed and drunk (but not as often as he used to be), but thoughtful and intelligent and spiritual too.

With No One as Witness, by Elizabeth George. Also a police procedural, but this time set in London. This, the latest book in the series, kills of a rather important character and I couldn't stop crying after I read the book. Not so much for that person's death but because of the way others felt afterward. (Quite a few of the Elizabeth George books have been featured on the PBS series Mystery, but the last two broadcast were not based on any of her books, but just on the characters, whom they've altered to make more telegenic. I won't watch them.)

The Jane Austen Book Club, by Karen Joy Fowler (each of Austen's books is reflected in the lives the characters -- enjoyable if you like Austen, and you know I do.)
Live of Pi, by Yann Martel (good book... Pi is a Hindu-Catholic-Muslim who survives a cross-Pacific trip in a life raft with a Bengal tiger)
The Magician's Assistant, by Anne Patchett (melancholy and very sweet. can't wait to read her Bel Canto)
Saturday, by Ian McEwan (the effects of terrorism on an English doctor and his family a year or so after 9/11)
Vox, by Nicholas Baker (one long phone-sex conversation. it's actually a good piece of erotica)
Confessions of Mycroft Holmes by Marcel Theroux (I'm embarrassed to admit that I'm not actually sure if I finished this)

I think there are more, but this is all I can remember ... and some sweaty boys are coming in from outside...