Reading Update

So, much to my surprise, and my pride, I have actually been reading the fictional book more often than the non-fiction book! Even though I am into the fictional book, I'm not so crazy about it. I'm a little bit disappointed.

I was expecting it to be a historical, puzzle-solving mystery. It's actually turned out to be a little slow. The book is told from first person perspective, which isn't totally my preference. The author, or "main character" even refers to the book that I'm reading!! She says things like "as you'll come to find out in this book" or "as you'll come to learn as you keep reading". That really bugs me because it's not really a true story or real life, so I don't like when characters talk about the book I'm reading! That takes away from the story, at least for me. I prefer to be a third-person viewer, and rather than hearing "I", I would like to read a story and hear things referencing things like "Susie" and "she". But, either way, the writer is very descriptive and even though it's not as historically or mysteriously as intriguing as I would like, it's still a good book.

Unfortunately for me, I really like the books where there are leads, and puzzles, and myteries. In this book, it's less mystery and puzzle solving and just more descriptives like "we were in the parlor" and "the dinner was wonderful. It consisted of...". I didn't really like that it was more of the day to day "boring" descriptive and less murder mystery and putting pieces of the mystery together.

But, the story is good and interesting, and hopefully by no means I have discouraged you from reading her books.

I don't think I will be buying any more books from this author though. But I will still keep looking out there for new mystery authors. So if you have any recommendations, then please share!

Currently Reading...

I'm going to go against everything I've ever done in regards to book reading.

I'm going to read 2 books at once.

To help myself "break through", I've picked one fiction and one non-fiction to break it up. I just never liked the idea of reading 2 fictional books or more at the same time because I didn't want to get into multiple plots and either get them mixed up or not get the full effect of the plot lines.

So, the books of choice this round are:

1. Non-Fiction: The Private Lives of the Roman Emperors by Anthony Blond. I'm already 1 chapter in, and the next chapter is about the Roman Army. For some reason, Mr. Blond picked Sex as the subject of his first chapter, and while it was interesting, it would definitely have been something I would have rather read last. It's a little bit of a harder read, and isn't quite as spell-binding as the Biography I recently finished about Augustus, but the facts are really interesting once I slow down and focus and process what I'm reading. There are a lot of things about the Romans that I bet you didn't know! And that's what I love finding out!!
   
   

2. Fiction: Street of the Five Moons by Elizabeth Peters. This book was purchased as a spur of the moment decision, during a late night run to the grocery store. I'm always looking for great mystery/archeological/historical/puzzle solving fictional books (shocking!) so I thought I'd peruse the book aisle before heading to the check out counter. The cover and title caught my eye, and upon reading the back and the bio on the author, it turns out the book appears to have all of the above criteria I just mentioned, and the author apparently has a PhD in Egyptology. So she knows her stuff! I'm really excited to get into it. Oh yea - and the main character ends up chasing her mystery into - ROME!

So, since I can't decide on a weekly "theme day", and I don't have enough followers yet for a good cross-section of feedback, I'm going to go with blogging about books, whenever. I need to read more, and I always buy books and then don't read them, so I want to do this to hold myself accountable!!