Singing to the Dead

At last! A book I could not put down. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Singing to the Dead by Caro Ramsey. There were two stories intertwined and the pacing was terrific. Just when the solution seemed obvious out would come another twist. I loved the characters and look forward to the next DI Colin Anderson and DS Costello (with a mysterious first name) mystery. There were 510 pages but the font was larger than usual (publishers please note, that size font is perfect for tired eyes late at night) so I am not sure if it was longer than usual. Now I have to find her first novel, Absolution.

Novels should be shorter

I have just finished reading Ivory by Tony Park. It started off as a promising read: pirates in the modern age; big business; African culture and colour. Sex and viiolence thrown into the mix. Halfway through the book I started to get bored. Did I really care what happened to Jane, the lawyer from London? Did I care if the dashing pirate (minus a couple of fingers) Alex avoided jail, remained alive, and rebuilt his tumbledown hotel? When I reached the elephant cull/hunt I could not bear to read the details and skimmed over a chapter. I still had a third of the book to go. I could not abandon it after devoting so many hours to reading it. I needed something to show for my efforts (a finished book on my shelf). I struggled on and then started skimming in ernest. Perhaps it was because I was skim reading but events seemed even more far fetched and the ending very contrived. At 434 pages it was a struggle.

Why do publishers insist readers want to read long books? I would rather read two books each at 200 pages than one at 400 pages. There are too many books out there to waste my precious reading time on one book.

Balancing the Books

My biggest problem is that I buy more books than I can read. I went cold turkey and did not buy a book for two months but that did not hep. I have so many books waiting on my groaning bookshelves that I think I could retire now and read for the rest of my life and not catch up.

My tally for August so far is: 14 books bought and 7 read. Of the 7 I have read this month, 3 were left over from previous months. On top of books to read there are newspapers, magazines and the internet. My life is full of words waiting for me.

I need to find more hours in the day for reading - hence the thought of giving up work and retiring! If only I did not need so much sleep.....

Self-published e books

I prefer paper books I can hold in my hand and transport easily but now and then I look at e books. One problem I have with reading e books is that I can't figure out how to bookmark my page but then even if I could do that I have a habit of reading the same book on different computers, ie my home computer and work computer so I still have to remember what I am up to.

I think e books should be supported and especially self-published authors. There are some gems out there that haven't been discovered by the mainstream publishers.

I can thoroughly recommend a self-published e-book I found at Smashwords: Options by Rosemarie D'Amico. Don't be fooled by the cheap price ($3.99) - I would have paid more. Options has all the right ingredients: murder; strong characters; intrigue; all thrown into a company specializing in take-overs. I loved the details about working in the company and Kate is a great character, full of flaws but likeable. Definitely deserves a mainstream hard cover launch (and no, I have never met the author!). Not sure about the cover though......

What I have been reading - 2

I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Lost Art of Sleep by Michael McGirr, and no it did not keep me awake! It was a mixture of personal anecdotes, history, science, philosophy and humour. A very interesting examination on why, how, where and when we sleep. It is not so much an advice book on how to improve your sleep as an informative discussion on everything related to sleep from beds, to sleep masks, from Plato to Kevin Rudd.

David Baldacci's latest thriller, First Family was an exciting read - that stopped me from sleeping a few nights. Some clues seemed obvious but the book just swept along and I was not sure what the wash up would be until I finished it.

The red bookcover for First Family is the Australian version and the gold one on the right is the American one. I like the red one best so it looks like the marketing/design people got it right for the Australian market.