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by Pat Boze LTLS Consultant
I am a great fan of mysteries and particularly like those authors that take me to another place or time, have great character development, and contain numerous plot intricacies that keep me surprised and interested. With my favorite authors in this genre - Tony Hillerman, Charles Todd, P.D. James, Ruth Rendell, Elizabeth George, Martha Grimes, Faye Kellerman, Minette Walters - I have read everything they have written.
Last winter I decided I needed to 'get out of the crime gutter' and revisit the Classics. I found a list of Top 100 Classics and challenged myself to read through this entire list. I started with George Eliot and E.M. Forster. To my great surprise, I loved Silas Marner and The Mill on the Floss (Eliot) and Room with a View (Forster). Perhaps it's the size of the print or the age of my eyes, but I decided that the classics are harder to read, so I'm allowing myself to listen to them on cd. I spend an hour in the car each day driving to/from work, and this makes the commute much more enjoyable. In the interest of investigating additional formats, I've followed up each classic with a 'movie' version of the book to see how closely the script and characters match what I imagined. I also owe a big 'thank you' to Masterpiece Theater (PBS) who broadcast several Charles Dickens stories this winter and tweaked my interest in this wonderfully creative author. It's been fun to re-visit the classics and I will continue to work through the list of Top 100.
When I get tired of reading, my third area of interest is cookbooks. I only check out cookbooks with pictures for each recipe because I love the visual close-ups of the finished product as much as I enjoy reading through the recipes. I am concentrating this summer on healthy, quick salad and entree recipes, with an occasional cake-decorating cookbook on the side. My mouth is watering just thinking about them.
As for your summer reading, here is my wish for you-
Let books be your dining table,
And you shall be full of delights.
Let them be your mattress
And you shall sleep restful nights.
--Author Unknown
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