If there was one thing being out of work has given me more time for, it is reading. And for that I am grateful. In the last few months I have read a varied selection of books, such as:
Dead Until Dark and Living Dead in Dallas by Charlmaine Harris
Jamie -- I'm sorry I recommended these books to you, they weren't nearly as good reading as I thought they were originally. Rating: 2/5
Echo Park by Michael Connelly
A reasonably clever crime thriller -- the protagonist whose name I can't recall clearly wasn't very memorable, although the plot had some clever twists. Rating: 3/5
Exit Music and Black and Blue by Ian Rankin
If you are going to start reading Inspector Rebus novels, it's probably not best to start with the last one. Rebus himself is not very likeable, but this is a good thing as it shows you are an engaging with the character, and I found the descriptions of life in Scotland's cities as interesting as the plots. Rating: 4/5
Cold Deck, Hot Lead and The Commanche Kid J.T. Edson
Shamefully, I'd never read a single cowboy novel before these -- but I really enjoyed them. They were fun and lively and easy-to-read, but not so easy you got bored quickly. Their charm was that they didn't try to be anything they weren't. If you ever see any of J.T. Edson's books, they're worth picking up for taking on an aeroplane and then leaving behind when you're done. Rating: 3.5/5
Dexter in the Dark and Dearly Devoted Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
Foolishly, I thought that the books followed closely the same plotline as the Dexter tv series -- while the first might have done, these certainly do not. It's not a bad thing, it just caught me off-guard that there are several major differences in the ongoing plots. As for the plots themselves, they cleverly juggle Dexter's own personal struggles with the serial killer storylines, but reading two was enough for me. Rating: 3.5/5
Mister Roberts by Alexei Sayle
I've read all of Alexei Sayle's books -- which isn't all that many, but still more than one or two -- and I liked this departure from his normal plotlines. He remains as fondly acerbic about British people, in this case British ex-pats living in Spain, as he is in all of his previous stories, and he manages to be serious and funny and strange all at once. One of my favourite writers, satirists and social commentators today. But I still preferred some of his other books. Rating: 4.5/5
Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov
Another author I hadn't previously read anything by that I was compelled to put right -- and though I haven't yet finished this book (the first of his robot novels) right now it reminds me of a cross between 1984 and Blade Runner.
After I finish this Asimov novel, and maybe another, I plan to expand my reading into the works of Deepak Chopra and something in the way of Quantum Physics, if there is anything vaguely accessible.
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