Despite the semester now being in full swing, I managed to get in some pleasure reading this past weekend.
Bones are Forever, by Kathy Reichs, is the lastest of her Temperance Brennan novels (and the basis for the Fox TV show Bones) and only took me 2 days to read. Granted, it was all I did for 2 days, but I got it from the library and knew that there are many other people waiting to read it. I really like both the Temperance Brennan in the novels and the one on the TV show (Bones is one of the few shows that I will allow to semi-dictate my evening engagements), but I really like the idea of the novel Tempe better. The novel Tempe is a forensic anthropologist that alternates between her home base in Charlotte, NC and Canada, mainly Quebec. Bones are Forever is a book that spans across Canada, introducing mining issues and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. This really was an investigation of murder that I did not expect. There are times when a book totally follows everything one expects, but Kathy Reichs has a way of creating unexpected plot twists and connections that ought not to be connections.
Mainly, I would call this a fluff read. I just wanted a novel that I didn't need to analyze or summarize in a 3 page paper. I'm a history bluff, so some of what Reichs injects into her novels, such as the establishment of the RCMP, is totally fascinating to me.
I'm still reading a mixture of pleasure and school work. I'm reaching the halfway point in Lady Almina, which I am really enjoying, especially when I find little things that link the real-life residents of Highclere Castle to the fiction residents of Downton Abbey. Even though this is a biography, I find that it reads like fiction because it's hard to imagine the upper class lifestyle that people like Lady Almina had.
For school, I'm finishing up Nietzsche, finally, and halfway through The Slave Ship. The second one is for a history class, which I am really enjoying because we are analyzing the text as a class. I like being able to bounce ideas off my classmates, especially when they have a differing perspective. It really opens my eyes to different ways of thinking.
I don't really have any projects to share today, as it's mostly craft show stuff that I haven't had a chance to photgraph. I am making things, just nothing spectacularly out of the ordinary.
Linking with Ginny for the Yarn-Along!
I am going to keep a look out for the real downton abbey book-I think it is something that I would love based on your description-thanks!!
ReplyDeleteI've read a few of Kathy Reichs books and have enjoyed them. I agree they can be a bit predictable, but sometimes that's just what I need.
ReplyDeleteI was never into history when I was young, but the older I get, the more I enjoy reading novels that are set in the past or that incorporate real historical events with fictitious plot.
I bet you'd enjoy being part of a book club (if you've never tried), because you get to have that dialog with others that can be so enlightening.
Happy Reading!!
It sounds like it would be a good vacation or camping read. I'll have to think about that next time I go away.
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