Do you recall the library card you had as a kid? If you had one there were columns for date checked out and date returned. Four or six columns per side. One summer I filled up the card. A librarian didn’t believe I was reading the books, until she asked me about the four I was returning, four was the limit for a kid, and I went on and on about them. This was a time I had read all of The Bobbsey Twins (don’t do that now) and the other youth books they had available. So I started in on the adult stuff. I was pre-teen then. But I recall checking out the Gone With The Wind and the Autobiography of Eddie Rickenbacker, a WWI flying ace. Both of those books were 2,000 or so pages long.
A couple of years ago I was in Goodreads, an online book tracking place. Do reviews, track of what you had read, set goals, that kind of stuff. I was into 30 books or so in the summer and revising my goal of books to read. Ahhh! Retirement! All that changed when I had a stroke. Eventually, I was able to read. But not like I used to read. I have slowed down. My stamina is much less than it was. I have been working on it.
This weekend I finished 330 pages of NOIR, from Christopher Moore. It was a bad thing to do to a nice book. When the book started I kept my nose down and continued to read. Until finally, FINALLY, I finished the book. It is the longest thing I have read in two years. Mostly because it is a great book. A noir novel written in the last 10 years? They quit writing noir style novels … a long time ago. OK, it was set in 1947. So that fits. But wow! There are enough metaphors in that book … nah, no slick wordplay from me. Read Moore to enjoy the words. Because they are good.
OK, I am mostly asserting it is a good book without giving any examples. Know that it starts with the protagonist discovering his boss dead on the floor. Then he backs up a week and tells how it happens. Thanks mostly to “toots”, a woman you can see on the cover of the book. It helped me get through my lack of stamina and onward, I hope, to more reading. I have a TBR pile from the library.
—— MichaelRpdzx :: h3k
P.S. The international Hermes 3000 is awaiting some good cleaning. I have a can of PB Blaster. This is a first for me. Wish me luck.
P.P.S I am looking forward to not getting too caught up in Fountain Pens. They arrived. A hat tip to Joe Van Cleve for including Twsbi pens in his video on them, They are great pens. Now to work on my scribble and turning it into writing.