I’m still not reading much. Gloomy, rainy, windy weather may be part of that, but it’s mostly my distractions with football (a lot of college games on Friday and Saturday, and the pros on Thursday, Sunday and Monday) and an extremely difficult jigsaw puzzle which eats up much time.
I started a library book and only got through 35 pages before quitting. I started another library book and, though I like it, I’m inching forward at a snail’s pace. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I’m going to have to bear down and just set aside a day to do nothing but read.
Meanwhile, what are you reading?
Tip the Wink 
Read Chances Are by Richard Russo which I liked a lot. Loved his early books like Empire Falls, Nobody’s Fool, and Straight Man. This is the first book I’ve read by him in quite awhile. Read a couple of stories in Christopher Priest’s collection Episodes. Am now reading A God in Chains by Matthew Hughes. Hughes is a favorite of mine (and of George Kelly).
Sorry you are having trouble reading. I find gloomy days great for reading. When it’s hot and sunny I want to be outside.
That’s usually how it is with me, Steve, but I’m going through a period of little or no interest in the books I’m starting (or not even starting).
Yesterday I finished reading Frederica by Georgette Heyer yesterday. It is a Regency romance, not one of her mysteries. I had never read one of her non-mystery novels before but I did enjoy it a lot and I am glad I tried it. Sort of a romance but not what I expected.
Then I started reading Dissolution by C. J. Sansom, a historical mystery about the dissolution of the monasteries in England in the early 1500s. Not a period I know much about, so it has been interesting so far.
I’m sure I’ve not read anything about England or Europe in the 1500s. I hope it’s a good one.
I’m reading several books at once:
SILVER BULLETS: the 25th Anniversary Crippen & Lanndru collection. Surprisingly, there has only been one story (by Pronzini & Muller) that I’d previously read.
Richard Russo, STRAIGHT MAN. I haven’t been racing through this entertaining academic comedy , but I am enjoying it.
Dervla McTiernan, THE RUIN. Very good first mystery set in Galway, by an Irish writer now living in Australia.
Dave Barry, Adam Mansbach & Alan Zweibel, A FIELD GUIDE TO THE JEWISH PEOPLE. Silly but occasionally funny.
I did read ICE COLD HEART, the latest Monkeewrench & Magozzi & Rolseth book by P. J. Tracy, as well as O. Henry’s WAIFS AND STRAYS..
I got the email from C&L about Silver Bullets, but decided against buying it.
I automatically get each one as it’s released, in trade rather than hardback.
Slow reading here this week, Rick.
I finished MURDER NEVER KNOCKS, a Mike Hammer novel written by Max Allan Collins from fragments left by Mickey Spillane, and Reed Farrel Coleman’s ROBERT B. PARKER’S THE BITTEREST PILL, in which Jesse Stone tackles a high school opioid outbreak. Both were very good reads. My FFB was Katherine MacLean’s collection THE DIPLOIDS to mark her death earlier this month.
I filled in with short stories this week. I’m still working on J. G. Ballard’s complete short story collection, but I realizd that the so-called “complete” was not — at least nine stories from his collection THE ATROCITY EXHIBITION are not in the “complete” collection, so I had to dig out my copy of that book and amreading it conjunction witht he larger work.
I’m also nearly finished a graphic collection, JOHN CONSTANTINE; HELLBLAZER; THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION, which collects nine stories from 1985 to 2008, each by a different writer. Some of the stories are the first parts of a multi-story arc, leaving the reader (me, at least) frustrated and dissatisfied with this volume of mainly incomplete stories. Coming up is a Richard Matheson thriller and a collection of “lost” stories and articles by Algernon Blackwood.
Hope you find your reading groove soon, my friend.
Me too, Jerry. I’m even finding short stories dissatisfying. I read a few pages and put the book down, though the story may only be 8 pages long. I’m now considering rereading some old favorite just to get going again, but can’t think which book that would be. Oh my.
I will never understand watching sports on TV. Maybe your own team, but not just any game. I guess I have the same issue with that as you do with watching other things on TV, Rick.
Anyway, I am reading I LIKE TO WATCH by Emily Nussbaum, which is largely culled from her New Yorker pieces. Also RULES OF CIVILITY by Amor Towles, which I am so-so on. I love Richard Russo (except for a book or two). Glad he is back in good form.
I watch a lot of pro football, Patti, the Seahawks, which is “our” team, and other games as they are good matchups. On Saturdays, we watch the Oregon game and other Pac 12 games. I’m kind of from a Pac 12 family: Standford (mother), UCLA (father), USC (brother), Arizona (me). So we watch many of those games, as there’s a team to root for. We don’t watch baseball, except for the World Series, not basketball, nor soccer, nor hockey, we indulge in football.
I’ve finished up a couple non-fiction books. THE KNOWLEDGE GAP by Natalie Wexler analyzes our failing education system and makes some suggestions on how to fix it. At least once a month a new Sherlock Holmes pastiche shows up. I read MYCROFT AND SHERLOCK: THE EMPTY BIRDCAGE by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and The Osiris Ritual by George Mann. Someone donated their music CD collection to our local thrift store so I bought most of it. Now I have dozens of classic rock discs to listen to!
I avoid Holmes stuff by Jabbar. I have read the Mann and thought it okay. Enjoy your CDs!