I am currently reading three books:
Foster (by Claire Keegan), is about a young girl who is sent to live with another family. The book isn’t a long one (I’m about halfway through); it’s very well written, and a sweet story (so far), but there’s a growing feeling of foreboding, of another shoe about to fall… Anne recommended this to me after she read it. Interestingly, the story takes place in Wexford, Ireland, where some of my ancestors came from, and where we spent some time on our honeymoon.
Cloud Cuckoo Land (Anthony Doerr) is another recommendation from Anne. I just got it from the library last night on my tablet, so I’m only a few pages in but I’m already liking it.
The last book is a loan from Jeff. Evening in the Palace of Reason (James R. Gaines) is about the fateful meeting between Johann Sebastian Bach and Frederick The Great, the generational and cultural clashes represented by that meeting, and the resulting creation of A Musical Offering. It’s a great story, but the best part of this book is the background material: digressions, biographies, histories of musical theory, the Reformation…
I keep moving from one to the other, to the other. They’re all great.
Some other recent reads:
Still Life by Louise Penny, the first novel in her Inspector Gamache mystery series. Anne loves these books, and so do several of her friends and they’re always talking about them, so I thought I’d give the first one a try. The book was pretty good, and I can see why people like it, but I have to say I’m still not a fan of mysteries — especially here, where the author’s head fakes, misdirection, and general control of the information flow was a bit on the clumsy side. I’ll probably read the second one eventually (where the author may hit her stride a little better), but I’m making no promises about the entire series.
