A month and more!

Time just got away from me! C and Sam and I have been busy trying to buy a house, and we are almost there!

In the mean time, I have not had a ton of time to read... but I did put a few books back.

I read Charlie Huston's Sleepless. It was incredibly dark, but I enjoyed the new side of Huston and would recommend it.

I read the first three books of the Percy Jackson series. If you have not read these, you need to! They are super awesome and I have had an amazing refresher course in mythology.

I am reading book 12 in Jim Butcher's Dresden Files titled Changes. So far, so good! I will check back in soon! I promise! Until then.... What are you reading?

Charlie Huston's Henry Thompson series

I finished reading the last two books in the Henry Thompson trilogy. I read Six Bad Things last week and just finished up A Dangerous Man today. I was really hoping to read a bit more about Bud, but sa la vi. As with all of his books, I was throughly impressed with this series of novels written by Charlie Huston. I actually started to weep as I read the epilogue. His character development leaves me emotionally invested and I was impressed with the wrap up. I electrified equally by the acknowledgments. If you have not read Huston, you should.

I finished Caught Stealing yesterday but not without many tears. Not sure why this book had such a profound effect on me, perhaps it was the cat, Bud, who is now one of my favorite characters Huston has created. The book is violent, disturbing and raw.

I am going to read the next book in Huston's Hank Thompson series today, Six Bad Things. I have high hopes of being reunited with Bud, who I think Sam has a crush on. Huston offers free eBook downloads of some of his novels here. Pretty cool.

Huston also has a site where you can see the evolution of the covers for his books here. Also, pretty cool. One of my favorites is posted above.

Books that make you cry

I did not get a chance to do much reading this morning as I decided to sleep a bit later than normal to compensate for Sam waking me up at 4am by pawing my face. She apparently could just not wait a few more hours to be pet. It rained really hard last night as well and I think it was keeping her up and if she is awake, well I better be too!

I got to go to the Red Cross and attend CPR/Defibrillator training first thing this morning instead of going into work. It was pretty cool, the instructor was funny and knowledgeable and I learned some really interesting things. When I got home Sam greeted me with some loud meows, I got her some of her favorite food and decided to take a bath. I looked in the mirror and saw that I had rubbed the skin under my bottom lip raw from the plastic mouth guard I had been using all morning practicing CPR. It is really unattractive. As I got undressed, I noticed I had also had rug burns on my knees from kneeling over that damn dummy. Also, not very attractive. When I mentioned the ailments to one of the people who attended the class with me, they responded with "Wow! Your dummy got the best treatment!"

I got settled into the bath and started reading Caught Stealing, while Sam perched on the rim of the tub so we could relax and enjoy our new book. A few chapters in there is a scene that was horrify for me, albeit well written. One of the thugs trying to get information out of the main character, Hank, beats up Hank's cat and it is very detailed. I bawled. I cried because I was tired and picturing that scenario in my head was revolting. I wept because I love Sam so much.

I got out of the tub, dried off, got dressed and looked in the mirror again. Now, my puffy red eyes match my creepy looking lip and knees.

I like her because of her name

I finished The Long Division last week and read Megan Abbot's Queenpin early this week. The Long Division was seriously an awesome novel! I found myself actually gasping out loud on the bus, "Oh, shit...no way!" The way Nikita's ties everything together was impressive and I can not wait to get his other book, Pyres.

Abbot's book was a quick read with some of the sharpest dialogue I have read in years. I picked her up because she had a short review on the back of Nikita's The Long Division. The covers of her books are sexy noir and I am looking forward to more great whit, racy dialogue and unbelievable murders.

I am now reading Charlie Huston's first book, Caught Stealing. I have read his Joe Pitt series and think he is my favorite author right now. I am looking forward to the weekend so I can sit and enjoy the story.

What are you reading?

J squared is usually right

Derek Nikitas' The Long Division is awesome so far, I am glad that PDX has so many great libraries and librarians that help me find books I will love. I am a bit more than half way through and can all ready tell I need to log on to the library site and get his other book, Pyres, on reserve. You can read a cool interview with Nikitas here. I think it is awesome the blogger points out the scene where Nikitas is describing some roadside billboard messaging that was as equally significant for them as it was for me.

One of the interesting things about Nikitas' style that Sam and and I are really digging on is embedded in his prose. A great example would be the way he connects these two paragraphs:

" 'Sorry, those are the rules." The attendant offered her a smirk as she arranged some empty bottles on the desk. Jodie dropped the pen and hustled her purchases to the front of the counter instead, anxious to leave before anymore ugliness-"

"-dark, dirt-road shoulder seeped with oil. The powerlines [sic] moaned like the charge they carried was just too much. Each passing pair of headlights smeared her long shadow across the scrub grass."

This does not happen between every paragraph, or even every page for that matter, but the use of this style is impacting and I would like to learn more about it. I have done an Internet search with very little luck, any information someone has would be welcomed.

BUMMER

Adam Gopnik brought some things to light for me, but in the end, it was disappointing. As the discussion was based around Lincoln and Darwin there was of course an exchange about slavery. Gopnik goes into to rap up his thoughts on what would have happened if Lincoln had not been shot where he writes about there being no slavery in America and England anymore. He lost me there, that statement is just not true. So, I decided it was a good run, I learned a few things, and me and my grains of salt are moving on to Derek Nikitas' The Long Division.

Sam and I are excited about this book, as it was a library employee pick. The "staff picks" at the Hollywood branch have always been gold for us.

What are you reading?