Tuesday 10 December 2013

Bittersweet Accomplishments


Reading is a passion of mine.  There is a problem.  When you find a character you love, you tend to read all the books.  While they last this is great.  In the last few years, I have enjoyed Ian Rankin's Rebus, Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden, and Barry Eisler's Rain.  When the book supply is finished, you're left without a character to read.

In the above examples, there will be other books.  Maybe every year or so, the author will write one...maybe.  I guess I should consider myself lucky.  When I came upon these authors they had written quite a few books, so it took quite a while to get through their catalogue.  However, now I am caught up, and there will be a long wait between books.  Before, as soon as I finished one, there was another one waiting for me.  Now, I will have to wait a year or so.

Luckily for me, my bus is full of commuters who also like to read, though I am noticing more people doing "work" on their tablets or laptops.  By work I mean Candy Crunch, but that's another story.  If I have the courage, I ask them for recommendations.  If I feel shy, I just try to read the title or author and remember what they are reading for the next time I go to the library.  I probably won't hit upon the literature I read for my degree, but it should be passable commuting fare.  Since I've read all the classics, and quite a few post-modern tomes, some escapist fiction won't kill me.

Recently I have been reading the Inspector Banks series by Peter Robinson.  One of my commuter buddies recommended it.  He said that the first few were a little slow, they would pick up later.  I have read ten of them, and the last few have been really good.  Happily, I have at least ten more to read.  That should get to spring, especially if I read a couple of other books between those adventures.

There is a great sense of satisfaction when you come to the end of a series, but there is also a feeling of loss.  Bittersweet is too romantic a word,....but it seems to be fitting.  Maybe I need to go back and read all the Musketeer's books.

Feel free to recommend some book series to me.  I will need something for late spring.



1 comment:

  1. I am not a fan of Stephen King (hate horror), but I loved the Dark Tower series and the same character is in each of the books. They are somewhat uneven, but it's all pretty engrossing stuff. Even my husband enjoyed them and he is even less open to King than I was (which means not at all). The character undergoes growth and the ending is unique. If you haven't tried it, I'd say give it a go.

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