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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
The Instant Enemy
Yet another good Ross Macdonald. It is rather convoluted, and has some weirdly tangled family relationships, but fun and quite good. Lew Archer is hired by Keith Sebastian to find his daughter Alexandra (Sandy), who apparently has run off with a rather wild boy, Davy Spanner, along with her father's shot gun.
Davy has had rather a troubled time of life. It seems that he was found by the train tracks, at the age of three, next to a decapitated corpse. The corpse was presumed to have been his father, but it was unclear whether he was murdered or committed suicide. Davy's mother vanished about that time and he was brought up by foster parents.
Anyway, Archer digs into Davy's past, finding a high-school guidance counselor who keeps trying to help, finding the ex-cop who was supposed to have investigated the railroad accident, finding a woman who appears to have taken Davy in—gave him a sort of job and housing. Has she also taken Davy into her bed?
Well, there are lots of other loose ends which may be related. It seems that Keith Sebastian's boss's father was murdered on the beach around the time Davy's dad met his fate at the hands of the train; Keith Sebastian's boss himself seems to have a rather controlling mother, and so forth. Oh yeah, the boss is kidnapped, perhaps by Davy and Sandy.
Well, it's convoluted, but rather fun, as is generally the case with a Ross Macdonald novel.
