Exceedingly Mundane

I was going to play along to today’s book-related Meme, “Booking Through Thursday”. But today’s question (found here) is “What is your favorite book that nobody else has heard of?”. Well. I couldn’t come up with an answer for that one! I don’t read obscure or non-mainstream books. I read very common, very average, kind of books! I might could list a Christian fiction book or author that some of you wouldn’t be overly familiar with, but anyone who reads that genre would certainly know. I’m not an “outside the box” kind of reader. I’m very mainstream.

So, I thought instead of playing along to that meme today, I’d do a quick catch-up post on my reading so far this year. I have read four books so far this year, in January, which is below average for me.

The first three books I read were a trilogy I got from my public library, “The Alaskan Quest” series by Tracie Peterson. I’ve read one other set of books by Peterson, the ones that preceded these, the Yukon Quest trilogy. I really enjoyed them, so I was happy to see my library get this other set of her books in. I read them all and enjoyed them. They followed characters from the other books, as well as added a lot of new characters, places, intrigues, and plot lines. These are historical Christian fiction books, set in the Alaskan territory in the early 1900’s. I really enjoy reading about a place and time that I can never visit, especially when it’s well researched and well written.

The other book I read is the first one for the reading challenge I’m participating in, Annie’s “What’s in a Name” challenge. I chose to start with the color option, which is “Windy City Blues” by Sara Paretsky. I picked up this paperback at a recent library sale, along with one other by Paretsky. I had not read anything by her, but she came recommended to me by a fellow book-loving blogger. I was vaguely familiar with her main character, V.I. Warshawski and knew they were detective type novels. What I didn’t realize was that the book I chose for the challenge was a set of short stories, not one long novel. Which is fine, but normally I don’t read short stories, so this was really a stretch for me outside my normal comfort zone.

I did enjoy the book, but I have to say – what I liked about the book was also the one thing I didn’t like about the book. HUH? Does that make sense? I liked that they were short stories and that they were quick to read and easy to complete. But that was also what I didn’t like about reading a set of short stories. I have sort of a “completion complex” when it comes to reading. It seems that with a short story, once I finished one, I was hard pressed to start another one. I did like reading one and having a quick resolution to the mystery and finding out “whodunit”, but then it was sometimes hard to pick up the book and start a completely new story with different characters and plots. That said, I did enjoy it and I do plan to read a traditional Paretsky book about her heroine, Warshawski.

So, I’ve completed 1 of the 6 books for the challenge. Look out for more reviews in the future 🙂 For the record, I’ve read 4 books so far in 2008, for a total of 1,475 pages read. Up next is the first book in the new Father Tim series by Jan Karon, “Home to Holly Springs”. This book is also on my reading challenge, and I’m looking forward to reading about my old friends, Father Tim, Cynthia and the gang. 🙂

Happy Reading!