Books, Cats, the Usual

Another thing I've been meaning to write about for some time has to do with books. For someone with "read" in the name of her blog, I don't write about books often, do I? It's not that I don't read--heavens, that's certainly not it! So far this year, I've finished 65 books, and that doesn't count all the ones I start but don't finish, either because I try them from the library and find I don't like them, or because I pick up an old favorite and read a bit of it, but not the whole thing.

I've found it hard to pin down why I don't write about reading more, to explain it so it makes sense to those who don't live inside my head (a surprisingly large group). I read a book recently where an exchange between two characters really hit home. Click on the pictures to make them bigger.

"...it's the sort of book I like. It's about nice people and it ends properly." ... "Some of the books nowadays begin quite nicely and cheerfully and then, half way though, they go all wrong and make you miserable." The older I get, the less I read of mysteries and creepy, suspenseful books, and the more I enjoy reading pleasant books that I can trust. Nice books. At work recently, I've been re-reading T. Tembarom. I'm sure it looks a little odd (not that I care, of course). It's implausible and all, but it's a nice book.

That's not to say there aren't exceptions: I recently read a novel called Me Before You, by JoJo Moyes, and it was so good and yet had some troubling ethical questions*, the sort of thing that you finish and keep thinking about for a while. And in a quite different vein, Jane Austen Goes to Hollywood was an enjoyable teen novel that I think would be equally enjoyable whether or not you were a Jane Austen fan; I do recommend it. But fewer serial killers, less of the blood-and-guts-and violence, and more pleasant, possibly improbable, entertaining reads for me, and that tends to send me toward old books, often out of print ones that are challenging to recommend to others.
*But wasn't the sort of thing to piss me off, the way My Sister's Keeper did, which put me off the author permanently.

Anyway, in case you've wondered, that's a good part of why I don't write about books more often.

To completely change the topic, I have more pictures to share. It's been a while since I've had an orgy of cat pictures, hasn't it? Well, here they are, His Lordship and Miss Priss.

Pretty cute!