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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
Keeper of the Keys (Charlie Chan, Book 7)
This is the last of the Charlie Chan books, and a fine one it is. Charlie is invited by a rich man to his house on Lake Tahoe. His ostensible job is to learn if the man had had a son by his ex-wife, an opera diva, and if so, to find the son. Also invited to the house are the diva's three other ex-husbands as well as her designated #5, once her Reno divorce on #4 becomes final. So, naturally, the diva shows up as well and manages to get murdered in her sitting room, just as the plane that is to take her back to Reno comes flying over to land. Oh yeah, the pilot of that plane is also sweet on the diva, much to the chagrin of the pilot's spouse, a maid in the household. Anyway, you can guess that things are rather complicated. Charlie, being an outsider, gets involved at the behest of the new local sheriff, who is way out of his depth, but who knows tjat. It's a complex plot, but rather fun.
I don't know if Earl Derr Biggers had plans to continue with Charlie's adventures, but unfortunately, he died shortly after this book was published. This book is a fine one on which to end the Chan series, still well plotted and well written.
 - Earl Derr Biggers)