I haven’t been reading very much:  sewing cushions for my rattan chairs, gardening, planning a couple of social activities, Zumba and dithering over which pictures to put where have been taking up most of my time.  My latest project is sewing a blouse, which is not going to turn out very well but is good practice for future sewing projects.

For preparing, planting and caring for our front flower bed and container plants, The Southern Living Garden Book (my book) is a detailed, helpful reference.  I bought this book almost ten years ago, the first time we lived in Charleston, and I’m glad I kept it all these years.

I finished Tinker,Tailor, Soldier, Spy and the end of the book is so perfect in an ambiguous sort of way that I got all cross again thinking about the butchered ending of this year’s movie.   I am tempted to start (re)reading The Honourable Schoolboy (my book, a UK edition), the next book in the Smiley/Karla trilogy, but I’m thinking I should try to read more books that are new to me.  After Tinker, Tailor, I re-read Enigma, by Robert Harris (my book).  This is a thriller about the British cryptologists at Bletchley Park who broke the German Enigma machine’s codes during World War 2.  Robert Harris is a terrific writer, so the book is much more gripping than it sounds.  Then I started The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler (my book), another re-read.  I read this book not long after it was published in the late Eighties, and I remembered how much I liked it but not much of the novel’s details.  About halfway through, it is a wonderful story about Macon Leary, a stuffy isolated man who is mourning the murder of his son and subsequent breakup of his marriage, while trying to deal with his strange family, strange job and bad-tempered corgi Edward.  There is a nutty dog trainer named Muriel who helped Macon with Edward for a while, but, at this point in the novel, she has been banished for bad behavior of her own.  I’m enjoying the book, but it seems dated.  It’s strange to read what is essentially a contemporary popular novel without cell phones and the Internet.  This is when I started thinking that I should read more books that are not only new to me, but new in the sense of recently written.  I’m still going to finish Tourist, because it is a good book and Macon is a well-written character in spite of having no cell phone.

I have another book going which is (yes!) both new and by extension new to me:  The Bollywood Breakup Agency, by Naina Gupta.  I found this $0.99 Kindle book on Amazon yesterday while I was looking for another book and bought it through the magic of 1-click.  Amazon reviewers described it as a chick-lit book about a modern Indian girl trying to thwart her parents’ efforts to make an arranged marriage for her.  I’m about 5% into the book, just getting to the part of the story that will explain the title of the book, and so far it’s a light entertaining read.  The heroine is spoiled but cute, and her family life in the UK with her traditional family and Indian soap operas is interesting.  I think I’ll get my $0.99 worth out of this one. 

I did read and finish another book that was new to me:  The Man with a Load of Mischief, by Martha Grimes.  I bought this book after I read a positive review of Martha Grimes’ latest book in her Richard Jury mystery series.  I hadn’t read any books in this series, and decided to start with the first one, The Man with a Load of Mischief.  I found it very slow, with a lot of intricate detail about the detective, his eventual sidekick and all the murder suspects.  The motive for the murder was a very good twist, but the actual resolution of the mystery was bland.  I don’t plan to buy more of these, although I might try another one if I can find the series at the library.

In between these books, I read the anthology Malice Domestic 9, edited by Joan Hess (my book).  I thought all the stories were good and pleasant reading.  Not all the anthologies in this series are equally strong, but this is one of the better ones.  I also dipped into mysteries by one of my favorite need-to-read authors, Dick Francis.  I own a stack of his horse-racing mysteries, and I still get fun out of dipping into some of my favorites to take a break from books that need my full attention.  Dick Francis was a celebrated steeplechase jockey, so the racing details in the books are accurate and exciting, but it seems that his famous name and knowledge of racing are his main contributions to the books, with most of the writing actually done by his wife Mary, then by one of their sons after Mary’s death.  The family that wrote together made a lot of money and entertained a lot of people with the books, and it is good that Mary is getting some recognition now for her writing skill. 

Now before I pick up Robert Harris’ Fatherland to re-read it, I need to get to the library with my long booklist and find something new to read!