The Lost Symbol and Hardball

I am still struggling with Dan Brown's 'The Lost Symbol' and am about ready to give up and return my copy to the library, wait for it in paperback and hope it reads better next summer at the pool. Maybe I will give it one more chance (the sign of a bad read for me is my never ending enthusiasm to find something, anything else to read). I've picked up started stopped and returned to this at least a dozen times.

But Sara Paretsky has returned with a big smash hit in her long running but rarely dull VI Warshawski (as VI's young cousin remembers to spell the family name....a warrior on a rickshaw riding a ski). Taut, tight, compelling a true home run I highly recommend 'Hardball'. A lot of empty spots in VI's past are filled in and maybe just maybe she's found a new man to help fill some of the empty spots in her personal life.

All the favorites are back...Lotty and Max, Mr. Contreras, the dogs, cameos from Bobby and Murray the familiar Chicago of VI. Solid mentions of Boom-Boom, her beloved mother and father as well as the appearance of a new cousin and her father's much younger and much more successful (at least in a worldly sense) brother Peter.

If you've read VI and are a fan, run to pick this one up. If you don't know VI, 'Hardball' could be read as a standalone but do yourself a big favor. Start from the beginning and learn to love her.

Second Spirits

Written by Juliet Blackwell....a pseudonym for sisters working on apparently a couple of mystery series. This is the first in a series whose main character is a witch with a BIG W. In the world of witches her power is off the charts but somewhat untrained, unfocused and definitely not to be messed with.

I picked this up as a throwaway...'well maybe I'll give a new series a try' kind of a whim purchase. And while I am neither a witch (I can't even convince red lights to change for me)0r a believer in a lot of extra sensory 'stuff' I definitely think there are folks among us that have something more than the rest of us do...maybe they're just more aware, more in tune with their surroundings or maybe who knows what.

This book is filled with those people....whether or not witches (wise women, healers, and such exist I leave for you to decide). Well written (I fell in love with Oscar) and given the right amount of suspension of belief, very believable. In fact, given some of the poor quality of mystery writing coming out now, this is one of the better books I've read in a long time. Hopefully the next book due in Summer 2010 is as good.

Dan Brown

I excitedly went to the library on Tuesday to pick up my copy of The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown's latest. Didn't know if it would be closer to DaVinci Code and I would stay up all night to read it or Angels and Demons and would have to wait for the movie after trying half a dozen times to finish it.

It seems that 'Symbol' is somewhere in between the two. Despite the fact that I did indeed stay up all night (in the hospital ER with torn ligaments in my knee, waiting for some pain relief) I can't really get into Symbol. It's all about the Masons. Now my grandfathers and my dad are/were all Masons and NONE of them were as creepy/disturbing/downright disgusting as some of the Masons Mr. Brown uses as the hero???villains??? of 'symbol'. Nope never saw my dad drinking wine from a human skull or saw tattoos on his fingertips. (He is living with us and believe me I checked, no tattoos).

So the jury is still out on Mr. Brown's new book. We live near Washington DC and lived in DC for several years so I am very familiar with his setting and sure don't think there is some mysterious portal to the place where the answers for the mysteries of the world anywhere in DC but I'm willing to be open-minded about that.

If only he didn't have to be sooo wordy. I understand Robert Langdon is bright beyond belief but does he have to keep reminding the reader about his eidetic memory? I'm only 182 pages into the book and have no real interest in finishing but I keep thinking that it has to get better. But so far, I don't really care about the kidnap victim, the weird CIA Security Chief was just irritating not threatening and the symbology explanations just seem silly not intriguing. At this point I'm not even sure that Ron Howard/Tom Hanks/et al can save this one! I think maybe Mr. Brown has too much crazy stuff in this one. A mysterious scientist and his sister with a hidden neotic science lab in the Smithsonian storage facility, a tattooed Masonic fanatic masquerading as the scientist's psychiatrist, the strange reluctance and withholding of information on the part of Langdon.....and the never ending wordiness of Dan Brown. This may just combine to be too much for most readers.

I will persevere however. Maybe I'll just ask my dad first if he has a skull hidden in his closet that he now uses to drink his diet coke from. Or maybe he does know where the hidden portal is and will share with me and I won't have to read the next 300 plus pages of 'Symbol'!

Kathy Reichs new book

I just started 206 Bones (the number of bones in the human body). So far it seems up to the standards of her earlier works...I have not been pleased with the series since she became not only an author but the driving force behind the Fox Network's TV series called Bones. Especially in the first few books after the TV deal I felt that she was more writing a TV script than a novel. I have hopes for this book that maybe just maybe she is actually writing for her readers not her viewers.

Not about books but about my puppy's blog

Check out the blog A Tale of Four Paws. (For Whom the Tail Wags). It's written (really he writes every word) by my new mini dachshund puppy. He's 2 1/2 months old and is absolutely one of the smartest dogs I've ever known...I mean he's already authoring his own blog! He's also cute.

Keep reading...I'll be back with some recommendations soon. I am looking forward to Dan Brown's new book...I believe its titled The Lost Symbol. I hope it reads like DaVinci Code and the inevitable movie treatment is as much fun as the movie Angels and Demons.

Three quick recommendations: Cry Mercy by Mariah Stewart (the end of a trilogy), Dust to Dust by Beverly Connor (latest in a series) and The Silent Killer by Beverly Barton....it's first in what is at least 2 involving the same characters--the next installment is due in February 2010.

Pup updated his blog today and I'm going to try and keep his nose to the keyboard as will I try and post every week or so.

Happy reading.  And really there's nothing better than reading a good book with a pup snuggled on your lap.  Try it sometime.  Great for the blood pressure, your stress level and just about everything else!