Wintery Reads

Writers read a lot. A LOT. For me, reading an hour each day before I start my own work fires up the brain cells. The story has to grab me, of course, but I also read for craft: to see how other authors put their stories together; how they use dialogue, voice, tense, etc. And winter's the perfect time: no grass to mow, the boat's wrapped up tight in the back yard, and the icicles are getting longer by the day above the back bedroom window.

Gotta tell you, I've been reading some pretty cool stuff lately. By far the most unusual novel I've read in years is Don Winslow's The Savages, which follows three twenty-somethings as they get drawn into the world of crime--a spoiled, lost young woman and the two men in love with her (and yeah, this gets a bit kinky). Everything about this book is different: the structure, the syntax, the dialogue, even the way Winslow uses punctuation. Case in point: the first chapter is just two words. "F--- you." Succinct, no?

Just this week I finished Tana French's excellent Faithful Place (one of Time magazine's Ten Best Books of 2010). A mystery-love story set in Ireland, it follows a cop whose seminal life moment was the night the woman he was planning to elope with left him--or so he thought. Gritty storyline, excellent pacing and use of dialogue. No pat ending, either, which is very important to me.

Dennis Lehane's Midnight Mile, the sequel to his excellent Gone Baby Gone was another good one, and I'm about to start the much lauded Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese.

So send me your suggestions! I'd love to add them to my list...

Of Books and Blueberries

To me, vacations mean lots of time for reading, and I sure do a lot of it when we sail. The last few weeks, for example. So here's what I'm into these days. Lots of Charlie Huston--really loved the three books in his Hank Thompson series. Last week I read The Mystic Arts of Erasing all Signs of Death--his dark, quirky book about a twenty-something guy who takes a job with a company that cleans up after people die violent deaths. Why he chooses to do this has a lot to do with a traumatic event he lived through a while back--something that's slowly and rather deliciously revealed near the end of the book. Despite the subject matter, or maybe because of it, it's one of the funniest books I've ever read.

I'm also a big Dennis Lehane fan and just finished reading Coronado--a book of short stories he published a while back. The book is named for one of the stories therein and what I found really interesting (besides his just plain excellent writing) is that he also includes a short play that's an expanded version of that story. The juxtaposition allows for a revealing window into the mind of this amazing writer.

I also plowed through all three books of the Stieg Larsson trilogy this summer--loving all but the last one which I felt suffered for the absence of its heroine's antics until the very end of the novel. Finally, a lovely surprise was found in Julia Glass's story of two sisters, "I See you Everywhere." I've been a big fan since reading her debut novel, Three Junes (which won the National Book Award). Amazing writing. Puts the rest of us to shame...

But hey, lest you think I did nothing more than bury myself in the pages of novels for two weeks, here's a shot of me cleaning the blueberries I'd just picked from a huge field in Bucks Harbor Maine!