October Book List

Ten books read in October.

The Sense Of An Ending by Julian Barnes I think I put Barnes on my list after reading a review about his book The Only Story. That one wasn't available at the library, but his Man Booker Prize winner was. It took me a couple tries to get into the story - one that makes you contemplate one's own life.

A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver  I have come to appreciate Oliver's poetry. This is the only volume our library presently has.

Plum Tree Crazy is the 19th in Laura Childs' Tea Shop Mystery series.

Finding Colin Firth by Mia March is a fun and heart-warming little story about three fans all hoping to meet Colin Firth when he comes to a small seaside town in Maine to film some scenes for a movie. (Hint: It is more about the three womens' lives than his.)

The Jury Master by Robert Dugoni Another new to me author and I don't remember where I saw his name. The story was okay once I got past the author's need to use as many metaphors as possible - 99% of which were bad and unnecessary. I almost gave up reading the book because of them.

Golden Prey and Twisted Prey by John Sandford are #'s 27 and 28 in his Lucas Davenport series. I am now caught up until his next one is published. By the way, Sandford knows how and when to use metaphors.

The last three of the ten read this month are ones I bought at the book sale so I didn't have to worry about getting books back to the library during my knee surgery and recuperation.

Jack Maggs by Peter Carey I got because I really want to read his book Oscar and Lucinda. Failing to find a copy of it, I decided to try the only book of his that I found. It took some getting into - a strange tale.

Sweet Thunder was one of Ivan Doig's final books. Doig has long been a favorite author of mine and while I enjoyed his earlier books more than the later ones, they have all provided some fine reading. Sweet Thunder is set in Butte, Montana in 1920 during the time when the great Anaconda Copper Mining Company ruled the town, the miners and most of the state.

A Shooting Star is one of Wallace Stegner's older novels, but one I hadn't read before. Stegner is another long time favorite author. I could not identify with the main character, a woman who has had everything her whole life, but is dissatisfied because her life has no purpose, no meaning. I kept thinking, "With all your money, influence, looks, etc. etc., you can surely find some way of helping those less fortunate." But her whole thing seemed to be about ruining the life she had and crying, 'poor me'.
Still, Stegner's fine writing and beautiful prose kept me reading even if I did think his protaganist was a self-obsessed neurotic.

An example of one of his passages: "He stood looking, and some tick of time went past - a moment or a thousand years - and he squeezed his tired eyes shut and looked again, and the night hung silent around him, the invisible silver was still falling, the moon was already lower."

Happy Halloween