tired

It is peculiar how a weekend of eating, drinking and laughing makes you so tired but there you are. I suppose I did work on Saturday too, but it seems long ago.

Now - books.
"U is for undertow" was a really good yarn. Sue Grafton keeps churning them out in this "Alphabet Crime" series, and unlike the Paretskys and the Cornwells has managed to keep it all fresh and interesting. She started with "A is for alibi" and now we're up to U so that is 21? books. Good on her, I really enjoy them. Kinsey is a likeable character.

"Never let me go" was a fascinating read and and just so well written, imagined and executed for something with so little plot. I can't divulge the storyline, because the atmosphere of unease the author creates is part of the enjoyment of this one. Once you realise what's happening - about 80 pages in - you are completely involved in how it's going to pan out. The narrator annoyed me intensely until I realised why she was stuck in the voice/personality of an annoying teenager. It is a "disturbing" book, to use that overused word, and very sad. I highly recommend it.

I set myself "A wrinkle in time" to read as homework before I read "When you reach me" by Rebecca Stead (people who know me will roll their eyes, because sadly, this is the sort of thing I do). I knew the Stead book, which has just won the 2010 Newbery Medal for outstanding children's literature in the USA, used the L'Engle book as inspiration for parts/part of the plot and that it was referred to frequently.

Well, I didn't enjoy "A wrinkle in time". It didn't hold my interest once they went off travelling in space and although I finished it, it was a chore. Didn't engage with the characters or the plot. I was disappointed because I know how loved it is.

I started Stead last night, and sure enough Wrinkle is first mentioned on page 8, so glad I did my homework. However, I am loving this book. Set in 1979 - single mum- appartment living in New York etc. it reminds me of the E.L. Konigsburgs and Freaky Friday type genre I loved in late primary school. I will be diving back in once I've finished writing this post.

(The photo is from our holiday. Hotel in Rue Dauphine, decorated for Christmas.
We talked about our holiday lots with friends over the weekend so now I am ready to go back again, thanks. Sigh.)