fall is for reading

First let me say that I have joined some of the cool kids, (or maybe I am feeling just somewhat un-stodgy) because I have been living in Neverwhere during my commutes the past week. What's more the master himself has been doing the narration.

When I am not there it is 1920s Berlin, a City of Shadows, which was not a pleasant place at all. A Franklin has woven a thriller involving Anna Anderson the alleged Romanov survivor, and a trail of madness she creates.

Recently I finished Gladwell's The Tipping Point - funny how I have recently heard references in media more since it has come to my attention. It's is not so much groundbreakingly new but full of interesting perspectives. Isn't that what the best books do? Make you think and look at life differently?

And, Picasso's War - is a thorough exploration of the impetus, creation and history of his masterpiece Guernica (which is pronounced gair-NEE-kah) Not totally sure of the timelessness of the painting, it is less that 100 years old. But I do know that images in books or online in no way do justice to a work like this, especially one this large. Yeah, seeing Pollock's work in person at the Tate Modern taught me that.

I am considering the Electric Michelangelo and Colum McCann's Zoli next but who knows? I think Harry Dresden is calling me.

A moratorium, maybe

My shelves are bulging, I can't find what I want and sometimes I stumble across a book I forgot I owned.

So I have resolved to stop or drastically decelerate my acquisitions, and try to prune. A select few will go to A's or her Robert's Christmas box, some to the Online Paperback exchange site and a few just to Goodwill because they are dated (but not too much).

OK, but what will do to celebrate the semi annual educator's sale at Borders? Hmm, not the blowouts that A and I would do, but something special. :-)

Since Christmas I have read a few that I promptly turned to the Paperback Exchange people and several have been snapped up quickly. Salvage, I could not get more than a third of the way through and gave up. It went quickly, must have been on someone's wishlist. Wish them luck.
I also finished Holy Fools by Joanne Harris and The Painted Kiss, an imagined bio of one of Gustav Klimt's close female friends. Neither can I recommend.

I have finished most recently, Horseshoes and Holy Water (I think that is the name) It had great potential but Mefo Phillips really isn't very good at writing, just recording. But it got snapped up immediately on my exchange site. Then I went back and finished Boorstin's series of essays, Cleopatra's Nose. Lots of food for thought without being too discursive and heavy.

I am now working on an art related thriller that A picked up for me The Art Thief. A fun read, it seems, not at all heavy, but not insultingly fluffy either.