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Reading Slothfully
I was told in elementary school that I only could read at half the speed for success in college. Oh well, one benefit of slow reading is you get to live with the characters a longer period of time. I read in a vain attempt to better understand people. At my other homes, I'm known as a spouse, pop, guy in the choir, physical chemist, computer/web dilettante and child-care provider. In theory, I'm a published author, if you consider stuff like Quenching Cross Sections for Electronic Energy Transfer Reactions Between Metastable Argon Atoms and Noble Gases and Small Molecules to count as publications. I've strewn dozens of such fascinating things to the winds.
Currently reading
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas
The Spirit of the Border
Ramona the Brave (Ramona, #3)
The Underground Man (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)
Delilah of the Snows
Mrs. Miniver
Betsy-Tacy Treasury (P.S.)
A Christmas Carol
The Way Some People Die
Envy of Angels
Murder Must Advertise
As I mentioned elsewhere, I have many fond memories of Dorothy L. Sayers' books from our days in Pittsburgh and first settling back in the Boston area (back in the good old days before Regan, when economists still made an attempt at being honest purveyors of their alleged craft, rather than lap dogs of the white-collar crime set). But after Clouds of Witness, I was a bit worried about trying another: Clouds was rather tedious. Fortunately, this book is vastly better. Sayers is now back in my good graces, and I'll soon be hunting up another of her books (of course, I could always look on the book shelf at the top of the stairs, but then I'd have to lug around a heavy, dead-tree paperback). Anyway, this book concerns an advertising agency and drug pushing. It seems that one of the people at Pym's Ad Agency tumbled down the stairs and died instantly. Perhaps he just slipped on the iron stairs, or perhaps not. Mr. Pym was a bit worried because the deceased was found to have begun writing a letter to him, i.e. Mr. Pym, about how all was not well at Pym's. So Mr. Pym hired Lord Peter Wimsey to join the ad agency, but under cover, as a black sheep cousin Death Bredon (Death as a name mostly rhymes with teeth). Along the way, Mr. Bredon, has quite a night life, garbed as a harelquin, masquerading his way through the "bright life" lived by London's rich and useless (Yup, yet another another reason to oppose inherited money).
The background and word play at the advertising agency is ever so much fun, and the coked-up druggies are also rather amusing. All in all, a rather entertaining read. My spouse agrees that this one is a GoodRead indeed.
