I spent most of August on planes and in hotel rooms. Bad for the soul, really, but good for the reading. I wrote a long letter to a reading friend and here’s the section about books:<\/p>\n
I finished off Maisie Dobbs<\/a> and am working on Bernard Cornwell’s series on Alfred<\/a>. I picked up a few books at the airport that were fun: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children<\/a> was an engrossing fantasy story with a sequel coming out in January. David Baldacci’s One Summer<\/a> was a bit predictable, but I enjoyed it anyway. I’ve also been diving into some young adult fiction from Cory Doctorow who writes about ed tech topics. Little Brother and Homeland <\/a>were really science fiction but dealt with contemporary issues of privacy and surveillance.<\/p>\n
I also read Rhett Butler’s People<\/a>, authorized by the Margaret Mitchell Foundation. It took me a bit to get into it as it was written in somewhat stilted prose but it turned into a good story, very sympathetic to Rhett. And it led to another book by Donald McCaig that is waiting on the Kindle: Jacob’s Ladder,<\/a> considered one of the best fiction books about the Civil War and set in Virginia.<\/p>\n
And more: Wallace \u00a0Stegner’s Angle of Repose<\/a>, The Book Thief <\/a>by Markus Zusak, and West of Here<\/a> by Jonathan Evison. The last was sort-of-historical fiction set on the Olympic Peninsula. The story moved between past and present. It took me a few chapters to get into it, mostly because I was only able to find time to read a few pages here and there, but one I started in earnest, I found it hard to put down.<\/p>\n
I’ve also been listening to a new mystery series set in London during WW II. The main character is an American, Maggie Hope<\/a>, who ends up as Winston Churchill’s secretary. Lots of fun work with cryptography and cyphers that has led me to Alan Turing and more about Blechley Park.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Now, I’m recuperating with a few days at the beach, and I visited the Island Bookstore in Corolla, always a favorite. I have a bagful of books. I pulled out Beautiful Ruins<\/em><\/a> and read it in two days. I loved the complexity of the characters but also the engaging prose.<\/p>\n
One more link to a blog entry I wrote about unions<\/a> on my professional blog.<\/p>\n
OK, just one more link: here’s the full list for 2013<\/a>. I’m up to 54 since the Daniel Pink anthology<\/a> included five novels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I spent most of August on planes and in hotel rooms. Bad for the soul, really, but good for the reading. I wrote a long letter to a reading friend and here’s the section about books: I finished off Maisie Dobbs and am working on Bernard Cornwell’s series on Alfred. \u2026 Continue reading