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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
So Disdained
I rather liked this book. It's the second by Shute that I've read, and I'll likely read more of him. It involves a young man who had been a pilot during WWI. During the subsequent ten years he had become an estate manager for a rich guy. He does it well and is more-or-less a member of the family. Driving home one night in the driving rain, he comes across someone walking along the road. He stops to offer they guy a ride and discovers he is an old mate from the air corps. His mate, however, has stayed with flying, the only thing he ever liked or could do competently. He was flying a spy mission for the Russians (this was before the rise of the Nazi's, so the "Reds" were a worry) and crashed his plane. So, we spend the rest of the book trying to save the pilot's bacon, so to speak, while making sure the "intelligence" that he had gathered didn't get back to the man's employers. It's a somewhat complex plot, but a rather interesting story, during a rather interesting period of time.
