Sunday Salon: A Reading Retrospective (October 2004)

How are you on this lovely Sunday afternoon? Have you recovered from the read-a-thon? From all the posts in my Google Reader it looked like everyone who participated had a wonderful time. I haven't had the opportunity to participate in any of the read-a-thons as of yet, but maybe one day I will get the chance. Despite that, I did spend a good part of yesterday reading whenever I could. At about midnight, I finished reading Push by Sapphire. I wanted to read the book before the movie came out this next month. It is a heartbreaking but inspirational novel about a teen mother who has two children by her own father. Her mother is pure evil. It was a difficult novel to read subject matter wise, but, oh, so worth it. I will be posting my review along with my thoughts on the movie later next month.

I am about to start reading Lion of Senet by Jennifer Fallon. After a good dose of reality, I am in desperate need of a taste of fantasy. Kelly (Kailana) from The Written World and I are reading the book together, and I cannot wait to get her take on the novel.

As I do on the last weekend of every month now, I like to revisit my old reading journal to see what I was reading five years ago at this time. I began blogging in the summer of 2006, and so many of my thoughts about the books I read before then were kept to myself. Reflecting on my past reading each month has been a worthwhile experience. I hope you have found it interesting as well.

October of 2004 was an especially challenging month for me on the work front. Lots of changes were afoot and there did not seem to be an end to them. My husband had gotten back into painting miniatures after taking a hiatus and I was reading up a storm in my spare time. As a result, I read quite a variety during October 2004. Care to travel down memory lane with me?

I started October 2004 off by finishing R is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton. R is for Ricochet was a bit different from the previous books in the series. Private Investigator Kinsey Millhone is hired to transport a wealthy man's daughter home after her release from prison and to is help make sure she settles back into the "real" world. In this particular installment, Kinsey is more of a passenger throughout the story, being led along by the various characters and the crime and mystery unravel.

One of my favorite complaints that gets my eyes rolling about Sue Grafton's novels is that she is stuck in the 1980's. Well, of course the series is! The author purposefully chose that time period, a time before people were completely reliant on computers and cell phones. A private investigator was forced to do much more research out on the streets rather than in an office behind a computer. I also love that the series is well grounded in reality. So much of crime fiction today includes over the top crimes (which I very much enjoy too, don't get me wrong). Sue Grafton's series provides the readers with a more down to earth realistic mystery. It's a refreshing change now and then. Besides, I'm quite fond of Kinsey Millhone. She's an intelligent and resourceful private detective. I enjoy spending time in her company.

Gregory Maguire's Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West has garnered much in the way of praise and criticism over the years. I went into the book not really sure what to expect--something light and fun, perhaps. What I found was something completely different. And I loved it. The novel is part drama and part social commentary, touching on a variety of political issues. It was even more about friendship, acceptance, faith and forgiveness, however. Since reading Wicked, I have never been able to look at the Wicked Witch of the West the same again.

October of 2004 was be the month I read my last Patricia Cornwell book. Trace is the 13th book in the series featuring chief medical examiner Kay Scarpetta. I read Trace hoping it would revive the series for me, and instead it was the final nail in the coffin. The writing made me cringe, and I finally accepted that I no longer was interested in the characters or what direction their lives would take them. I expected it to be hard to let the series go, but it was surprisingly easy. It would be the first series I ever gave up on but certainly not my last.

Fortunately, the bad taste left behind after reading Cornwell's novel did not last long. One of my online book groups selected M.J. Rose's The Halo Effect as the monthly read and I was eager to try out this new-to-me author. I was intrigued by the fact that the protagonist was a sex therapist and curious to see how the author would weave a mystery around that fact. I was not disappointed. I was captivated right from the start. I may have given up on a favorite series that month five years ago, but I also discovered a new one.

By far, one of the best books I read in all of 2004 was Khaled Hosseini's novel, The Kite Runner. I read the book all in one day, sitting in the sun room. My husband spent most of the day reading by my side (although I couldn't tell you what he was reading). I was blown away by the writing and the story. My heart ached for the characters. It was one of those books that made me say, "Wow!" upon completion.

Finding a book to read after that proved difficult, but I finally settled on A Breath of Fresh Air by Amulya Malladi. I had met the author in an online reading group and was curious about her books. I hadn't had the best experience with a previous book I'd read by an author I had met online, so I admit to being hesitant even still. However, my worries were for naught. A Breath of Fresh Air was the start of my love affair with India. It is a novel about facing the past, moving on and most especially about enduring love. I have since read more by the author and look forward to reading more by her in the future.

Needing something a bit less serious, I jumped immediately into P.D. James' crime fiction novel, A Mind to Murder. I was again reminded of how much I love P.D. James' ability to put the reader right into the minds of her characters without giving too much away. Next I dove into Jeff Lindsay's Darkly Dreaming Dexter, the first in a series featuring a blood spatter expert working for the Miami Police Department. The catch? Dexter is also a serial killer who only targets those who deserve the fate he metes out to them. The novel was funny at times. Jeff Lindsay never lets the reader forget that as likeable as Dexter may be, he is still a cold blooded killer. The book series has since become a television show which is quite popular in its own right.

After all that death, I thought I would spend a little time with Lynne Truss and her book, Eats, Shoots & Leaves; The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. It was both witty and educational. My favorite part was learning about the history of some of my favorite punctuation marks and how their uses have evolved over time.

It could have been worse. I begin my journal entry regarding Incubus Dreams by Laurell K. Hamilton with the idea that sometimes it is important to know what to expect from a book going in. This is one of the reasons I like reading a negative review of a book that is highly regarded. Not that this book is (or was) praised all that much. Still, having read several other opinions of this book before reading it, I was prepared for less mystery and more relationship issues. Knowing that, I was better able to appreciate the book for what it was, rather than what I hoped it might be. Incubus Dreams is the 12th book in the series featuring Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter. It was perhaps my least favorite in the series up to that point. Unlike with Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta series, I still cared about Anita and her friends and I was interested in their lives. So even with my disappointment in the direction Hamilton had taken the series up to this point, I still liked it enough to hang on.

While October of 2004 would be remembered as the month I read my favorite book of the year (and one of my all-time favorite books), it did not end on the best of notes. One of my pen pal's husbands had written and published a novel and I decided to give it a try. The novel, The Pariah Stigma, by Howard Selden, is about a group of people who are exiled to another planet because of their religious beliefs. After several years, some of the old leaders of Earth are forced to flee to the planet to make a new living of their own. The two groups must find a way to live peacefully if they are to survive. The novel was optimistic and simple. I found it lacking in suspense and thought it rather anticlimactic in the end.

Looking back over my reading that October in 2004, I can only think of how rewarding it turned out to be. I was introduced to several new authors and revisited old favorites. Out of all the books I read, only two left me disappointed. Out of 11 books, I would say that is pretty good.

Some Discussion Questions:

• I would love to know if you have read any of these books and what your thoughts are on them.
• Are there any movies based on books coming out in the next couple of months that you are looking forward to?
• If you are a series reader, have you ever given up on a series that you had once enjoyed? Or is there a series you continue to read because you are interested in the characters still, even if the story lines themselves aren't quite what you had hoped for?
• What are you reading right now?
  

This Week In Reading Mews:
Reviews Posted:
Still Alice by Lisa Genova
In the Wake of the Boatman by Jonathon Scott Fuqua

Reading Now:
Lion of Senet by Jennifer Fallon

Posts of Interest This Week:
Animals as Teachers: A Guest Post by Ingrid King (& a Giveaway of her book, Buckley's Story)
Wordless Wednesday: A Day in the Life of Anya and Parker

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I am taking a little break from my computer this week. My blog hopping will be down to a minimum, and I will not be posting to my blog. This will give you a chance to catch up on all your other blog reading and maybe read a book or two. I will be back before you know it. Have a great week everyone. Happy reading!

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