2008: What I have read
January 4, 2008 by healingmagichands
1. “The Choice” by Nicolas Sparks *** Pretty good read. A Love Story. Fairly believable. A moral tale, with an annoying moral.
2. “Adam and Eve and Pinch Me” by Ruth Rendell **** Murder “mystery” with psychological insight. I mean, you know all along who did it and why. Watching the police figure it out and observing all the wrong alleys they go up is amusing. Also, you get to see how the crime affects all the people in contact with it. Fun.
3. “The Crocodile Bird” by Ruth Rendell **** Another psychological study. Quite good, quite readable. This one delves into the relationship between a mother who is not really sane and her daughter. I enjoyed this book a lot.
4. “Burning Kansas” by Sara Paretsky *** Well, the whole time I was reading this book I was annoyed by the fundamentalist Christians portrayed in it. I kept wanting to sing a chorus of the Eagles song “Get Over It” to the other people involved in the story. I did ultimately finish the book, and when I did I wondered why I had read the whole thing. It is well written, the characters are true to themselves and well drawn. But I found it annoying that through all the events of the novel, no one seemed to learn anything or change at all. I didn’t feel like I had wasted my time totally, but still found myself annoyed by the book.
5. “The Loved Dog” by Tamar Geller. ** Apparently, Ms. Geller is dog trainer to the stars. She drops names like Oprah, Ozzie Osbourne, and Matt Lauer. So I read the whole thing, wishing I could afford to feed myself as much chicken as she advocates using as treats to induce a dog to behave the way you want it to. Her method of dog training undoubtedly does work. It is very Skinnerian, and he proved operant conditioning works.
6. “T is for Trespass” by Sue Grafton. **** Pretty dark story about elder abuse, identity theft. Of course, Kinsey almost gets killed, again. Just once I’d like to see her finish up a case without almost getting killed.
7. “With No One as Witness” by Elizabeth George **** Inspector Lynley and DC Barbara Havers solve another set of serial murders. Fascinating book, enjoyed muchly. It is flawed by the author’s need to torture her main character, however. Frankly, the death of Helen Lynley was completely unnecessary to the plot. Would it have been so bad if Lynley was allowed to continue happily married with a child to raise? What purpose was served to the story by killing his beautiful wife? This is a question that I find uppermost in my mind when I read many stories.
