Where is Your Bookmark? (08/27/2013)

Our family was hit hard by the summer flu recently.  Mouse caught a bad case of Conjunctivitis and I was laid up for a week, unable to do much more than move around the house like a zombie.  Other than a lingering cough, both Mouse and  I are feeling much better.  Somehow, Anjin has managed to stay on the healthy side, and hopefully it stays that way.

You would think a week of being sick would be the perfect time for reading.  Unfortunately, that was not the case.  I did watch a lot of HGTV though.  Love it or List it became a favorite.  And I got a few ideas for my own house.

I managed to get to the book City of Bones, the first book in Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments series, just in time for the release of the movie.  I finished listening to Joseph Finder's Paranoia, which ended on a high note.  I have yet to see the movie, which has not gotten the highest of ratings.  I have been spending much of my reading time on novellas of late, reading ones by John Connolly, J.A. Jance, and Shawntelle Madison.

I have settled finally into another full length novel and am reading my first Karin Slaughter mystery thriller, Unseen, which got off to a strong start.  It is a real page turner.  In audio, I am listening to the popular and much raved about Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, narrated by Wil Wheaton.  The novel is set in the future and is full of 1980's nostalgia.  Two chapters in and I am already loving it.  

What are you reading right now?  Is it something you would recommend?

Every Tuesday Diane from Bibliophile By the Sea hosts 

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros, where  

participants share the first paragraph (or a few) of a 

book they are reading or thinking about reading soon.

One of my most recent reads was a novella by John Connolly called The Wanderer of Unknown Realms.  I really had no idea what to expect going in.  It has an air of a mystery novel about it, but is definitely more a horror story.  The opening does not give anything about the story away really, but it does set the tone.  

Through Chancery, pausing only to wipe the dung from my boots.

To the Chancery, to the chambers of the lawyer Quayle.

There are men of wealth and power who wish others to know of their position in society.  They eat at the best restaurants and stay in the finest hotels; they revel in ostentation.  Even those who serve the interests of others more important than themselves are not immune from grand gestures, and so it is that the Harley Street physicians who tend to the ailments of the great will acquire suites of rooms fitted with antique furnishings, as if to say, "See! I am as good as you.  I can demean myself in displays of wealth just as readily as you can."  It should be said, of course, that it is somehow less noble to have bought one's possessions with money earned than it is simply to inherit, and arrivistes who try to compete will always be looked down upon by those whose wealth was acquired so long ago that the effort of its acquisition, the filth and sin of it, have since been erased from memory.  

Then there are those who understand that wealth and power are weapons and should be used carefully and not without forethought.  They disdain ostentation in themselves and in other men.  In a way, they may even be ashamed of their privileged position.  They have learned, too, that if those who look after their affairs--the physicians, the lawyers, the bankers--work in lavish surroundings, then someone, somewhere is paying more than a shilling extra on his bill in order to provide such comforts.  The man who looks after one's money should know its value and be parsimonious with his particular funds as he is with one's own.  

Would you continue reading?

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© 2013, Wendy Runyon of Musings of a Bookish Kitty. All Rights Reserved. If you're reading this on a site other than Musings of a Bookish Kitty or Wendy's feed, be aware that this post has been stolen and is used without permission.