"What I'm Reading" Wednesday

All right, it is Thursday, but at least I'm getting this done now, instead of completely ignoring it. I really do enjoy telling about the books I'm reading.

I pressed forward with Why Some Like It Hot by Gary Paul Nabhan, and I'm very glad I did. I found the remainder of the book far more interesting than the first part. I guess the search for an ancestral diet wasn't interesting enough, but when Mr. Nabhan started getting into the phenomenon of favism in the Mediterranean and the health advantages of the Cretan diet of greens and olive oil and the prevalence of diabetes in desert dwellers, I was hooked. I especially enjoyed the information on how people actually taste things differently depending on their genes. I think I have a "super-taster" among my children. Any little bit of pepper prompts a strong reaction, and I wondered why she just couldn't learn to like the spicy stuff. I think I'll try to be a little more understanding in the future. This book turned out to be an interesting read after all, and I hope I remember the lessons learned, especially the "keep reading until the end, even if you're not sure you like the book" lesson.

I also finished the book And Only To Deceive by Tasha Alexander. This book is a period mystery set in Victorian England dealing with antiquities fraud, and of course, murder. I liked the story very much, as well as the writing style. The author wrote in a clean, easy to read style that served the book well. She constructed an intriguing storyline, keeping it and the behavior of the heroine within the social mores of the era, especially the pressures of widowhood, while still allowing them to "push the envelope" of convention, as it were. I did question the intelligence of the heroine for a while, though. She seemed very willing to condemn/approve all behaviors according to her initial emotional reaction to them, instead of thinking things through more than once and then forming/changing her opinion. Only direct evidence allowed her to alter her "theory" of the crime. I would have liked to see her mentally explore different ideas and paths of reasoning before settling on the one that seemed most logical. It would have been interesting to see her make several different guesses, even if they were wrong, to show her intelligence and reasoning skills. As this book is the first of a series with this heroine, perhaps her character and reasoning skills will develop over the course of the novels. I will be very interested to see this happen. Although this book is new at our library, I am pleased to see that Ms. Alexander has 4 novels in the series published. As soon as I convince the library to purchase them, I will immerse myself again in the world of Emily Ashton. And I might not come up for air for quite a while.

Only 2 books to report on this week, but next week should be a bit fuller. I've checked out an interesting looking title, The Gift of Thanks: The Roots and Rituals of Gratitude by Margaret Visser, as well as a book on blood spatter by a crime reconstructionist (I think I'm hoping for a real-life Dexter), an autobiography of Melissa Anderson from the Little House on the Prairie television show, and a book examining the psychological implications of hatred. We'll see how far I get this week, since the kids are out of school. I may find myself way too busy to read, but I hope not. I hope I can encourage them to spend a bunch of their free time reading as well. That would be a summer to remember.