Yes, we all have done it at some time, read well past our bedtimes, and then felt sorry for it the next morning, waking with crud encrusted eyes, sore necks and a pain in our backs, trying hard to focus our eyes further than the 18 inches we held the book away from our faces the night before.  And yet when anyone asks, we say something silly like, “I just didn’t sleep well” but we all know that’s not the truth, we’re addicted to reading, and can’t put the book(s) down for our own health.

And yet folks still tell me that books are not a drug, not a controlled substance, and we cannot possibly be addicted to something that is good for us.  Still, I read until about 4 in the morning, knowing full well that I had to get up at 7 to get ready for the day.  I *knew* I was going to suffer for the reading I did the night before, and still I couldn’t help myself.

So I did a little more reading this morning, some of the heavier sort, to see if I could understand addiction a little bit more.  I found out a bit about alcoholism, which can become addictive, and yet there appears to be only slight withdrawal symptoms, and those less than the withdrawal symptoms from caffeine addiction. I also found out that there appears to be no withdrawal symptoms when it came to reading, nor video game addiction, but both can be quite damaging while engaged in them.  According to most definitions, withdrawal symptoms are an important part of defining an addiction.

But there in the Journal of Medicine I was reading this morning I came across this:

Habitual psychological and physiological dependence on a substance or practice beyond one’s voluntary control.

Which, I think, defines the addicted reader perfectly.  It’s impossible for an addicted reader not to read, and he will read cereal boxes if he has to in order to get that reading fix.

That being said, I’ve not written for 2 weeks because I’ve been horribly addicted to “A Song of Ice and Fire” series by George R. R. Martin.  I read through “A Game of Thrones” after having been loaned it from a good friend of mine (Cameron, you know who you are!) and then decided that I needed to own this series, and purchased the 4 book box set.

Side note about this particular boxed set, or the one I purchased at least, they were not in order..    What does it mean when you purchase a box set and they are not in order, you may make the mistake of starting to read the last one instead of the second.  Made for a confusing few chapters, to say the least.

But back to where I was going, the books are fantastically enthralling, and pull you deep into the world of the 7 Kingdoms and the war among Kings.  They’re not small books by any stretch, about 1000 pages each, and they are quite difficult to put down, as I’ve found to my dismay, at 4am.

I am a stickler, I’ve started purchasing these books in paperback, and will continue the series in paperback, even knowing that the 5th book is out now in Hardcover, and I’m nearly done the box set already.  I will wait, as I’m waiting for the 3rd book from Stieg Larsson, and The Girl who kicked a hornets nest.

In the meanwhile, I’ll have to satisfy my addiction with something else, or, perhaps, read a bit slower.

Yes, I read the news, and it’s great to see that there still exists in Montreal a quality english language daily.  The Montreal Star folded some years ago, and the Daily News was pushed aside, but at least the Montreal Gazette still manages to do some quality reporting, which some had probably feared would decline over time.  The past few months have seen the Gazette, and the french La Presse come out with some very informative pieces on our recently crumbling infrastructure, things just seem to be falling down around us, literally in some cases.

I honestly don’t believe government would be taking the actions they are now, if it weren’t for these two papers and the pressure they’ve been helping us apply.  True, television has got some of it, but it’s more flash than substance in many cases.  The Gazette also entertains though, I do enjoy my weekend funnies, even if they’ve moved them around a bit this last weekend.  But it’s still the front section that get’s turned page by page, and read most thoroughly.

I have to admit though, I do get a lot of news information online, heck, as an internet junkie, it wouldn’t be honest to say I didn’t.  Google news feeds through igoogle let’s me customize what I want to read, and what info I’m most interested in.

But for entertainment, I read books, and not just books, the occasional magazine, and I’m a regular subscriber to Readers Digest, and have enjoyed the articles, and the occasional funny from those folks as well.

As you may remember I also mentioned e-reading.  Now I don’t own a Kindle yet, and recent reports are leading me to believe that the wait for a Kindle Tablet may not be such a good idea, but I do have a kindle app on my smartphone, and I do read a good number of e-books, mostly free, but I did recently purchase a novel from Stephen King, “UR.”

Now why did I go and purchase an e-book without having a dedicated e-reader?  Well, to tell the truth, I’m a big Stephen King fan, and this book was an e-reader special, written specially for the Kindle, about a Kindle.  I’m relatively convinced it would have been better, and eerier, had I read it on an actual Kindle, but it was still a very good read, standard King fare, and definitely enjoyable.  Before the “low people” made their appearance, it became pretty obvious during the book they and their “living” vehicles would arrive soon enough.  I was glad to hear from them, and think King would do well writting a few more books about the different levels of that lovely Dark Tower.

I also finished reading The Invisible Man this week, and it ended pretty much as I had thought it would, but I couldn’t stop comparing it to the movie I watched a few years ago with Chevy Chase called “Memoirs of an Invisible Man” both invisibles are chased by the police, but the endings are quite different, with Chevy Chase’s movie ending with a happy marriage and children, and HG Wells Character not fairing nearly as well.

While doing some research, I stumbled on a novel with the same name as the Chevy Chase movie, as I understand they are not the same stories, I’m sorely tempted to find my way into reading that one.  If only there was a kindle version I could get, alas, I’m out of luck.

I just thought of something funny while typing that subject, I could have put “The Invisible Post” and added a whole lot of whitespace, but something tells me not many would have understood, nor appreciated my keen sense of humour…  (yeah, with a u, I’m canadian, so sue me! )

Now I’ve begun reading The Invisible Man, mostly based on the fact that I could read it for free with my kindle app, but also because I’ve always been curious of the origin of the story after having seen one or two movies on the subject.  And you’ve got to admit, Harry Potter has added a bit of lore the the idea of invisibility lately as well.

The movies invariable start with the making of the invisible man, that is, it starts with a visible man, with house home and family, then goes through becoming invisible, and either ending up with a newly visible man, or happy man in his invisibility.  The book starts with the invisible man, trying to pass himself off as any other man trudging along his daily life, only he’s trying to get his life back, without having to reveal his “transparent” secret.

Which makes things interesting, folks start to assume that the dark shrouded figure must have experience some horrible accident, which of course he has, and people start by feeling sad and sorry for what they assume is a horribly disfigured man underneath the bandages hiding his invisibility.

Somehow, I thing starting the movies off on the same foot would have made for a more enjoyable flick, but that’s just me.  The book is extremely well written, but then again I may be biased as I’m having such fun reading it.  Also, H.G. Wells is no schlep when it comes to literary works.

I have to admit, I”m only 1/2 way through the book,but so far, I’m thoroughly enjoying the reading of it.

Other things to read, the newspaper, been spending a good deal of time, all summer in fact, trying to find out about the state of our roads, and the intrepid reporters of The Montreal Gazette and La Presse have done a good job keeping their readers informed of the things the government hasn’t exactly been keeping us informed of…  I have not but praise for both papers, whose persistence has allowed us all to know a little bit more than we may have wanted to know, but at the same time, we have a better feel,and can apply more pressure, about our roads and city infrastructure.  Reading is good, and we can take pleasure in informative news articles as well as popular fiction.

Kindle is apparently coming out with a tablet, something that will be able to challange, some say with success, the Apple iPad.  I’m not so sure, but I do know that the Kindle is the one to beat when it comes to e-readers, nothing else is quite as good or anywhere near as dominant in the field.

But I’ve been considering getting a kindle since last November, since I saw the nice one my brother in law has at Thanksgiving.  And the pages looked like pages.  It made it really easy for me to start my journey towards electronic reading.  And it was that, as well as the Kindle app on my phone that really got me interested in e-books in the first place.  To be anywhere in the world, and have a library of books to choose from.  With a Kindle 3G, I would have my very own bookstore in my hands, anywhere I roam, without having to pay roaming charges, or any charges for the 3G download service!  This is very convincing.  I am very convinced.  I will get a Kindle, but will it be an e-reader, or will it be a Kindle Tablet?  This, I’m not so sure about.

Reading on my cell phone does depend on the environment, too bright, and, like the iPad, it’s impossible to see the text, without a shroud covering you and your electronic device.  The Kindle dedicated e-reader, however, works just fine.  Point one for the Kindle e-reader.  Now, the new Kindle Tablet, will it have the same sort of visibility problems as the iPad?  Frankly we just don’t know.  For now, I can say that reading Kindle books on my phone is easier than reading Kobo books on my phone, as the kindle app has a nicer looking color palette, black on beige, kinda like a real book; kobo is black on white, and can be tiresome on the eyes.

So I read on my kindle app, more often than I would have first thought.  This past week I finished “The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and I must say it was a compelling book, although in some sections, the language was a bit stilted, but that’s only because of the “growth” of the english language since it was written.  I enjoyed it, but again, was not surprised by the ending.  More and more, it becomes harder and harder for me to find any peice of litereature, or common trash novels, where the ending isn’t predictable.  Maybe it’s the large number of books I’ve already read, I don’t know.  I know they made a movie recently based on the book, and even though I never saw the movie, I could vividly picture all the characters, almost to their minutest details.  It was a good book, and one I encourage folks to go out and read, even if they get it for free like I did.

This week, I’ll be reading “The Invisible Man” from which numerous movies have been spawned, and sequels to these movies even.  I’m hoping I enjoy it as much as the other free reads I’ve downloaded, but we’ll see.  I’ll also be buying my first e-book, “UR” from Stephen King.

You may all know that I’m a rather large fan of Mr. King, currently have approx 90-95% of his books in Hardcover in my library, including a few select first run editions.  Although I cannot afford some of the more impressive editions that he has come out with in recent years, I’d love to get my hands on them.  One day, when my ship comes in.

I decided to purchase “UR” after actually finding a steal on Amazon for his next book coming out in November, “11/22/63.”  Most older folks will recognize the date that JKF was assassinated, while thost younger ones will have to look it up for themselves.  I’ve not even read the synopsis, cause I want to read it straight through.  I have tried hard not to read synopses of books when the author is someone I know and love.  That’s for “fishing” expeditions when I can’t find anything by an author I like, or I happen by the discount book table.  I bought (or pre-bought) “11/22/63″ when I noticed that the pre-order price was 20$ less than the release price.

Where have I been all these years!  Had I known about these pre-order prices in the past, I’d have saved myself a small fortune!  Methinks I need to keep my eye on Amazon much more often.

Until next week, read on your easy chair, read on your boat, read anywhere, but just go! Read!

I love to read, and even when I’m reading, I tend to find something else I want to read, which can put one in a bit of a backlog.  This past week I was away on vacation, whether or not it was a deserved vacation is a completely different story.  But while away, I had a lot of time to read a book or 3.

Last time I spoke to you all, I was talking about my Kobo and Kindle applications and the books I was supposed to be reading on them.  Currently loaded on the Kindle is “The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and just finised on the Kobo is “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley.  Two very fine books

As I just finished “Brave New World,” I must say it’s a pretty interesting view of the future, and a friend of mine said he found it to be more realistic a depiction than George Orwell’s “1984.”  I disagree.  I find both to have certain merits, and moreso based on the times they were written in, but both tend to look at the world from a very region-centric perspective.  Both are British novels, they both refer to the UK as the world power.  There was a time when this was true, but at the moment, it’s not quite so, and even those Americans who claim that theirs is the “true world power” may be deluding themselves.  Right at present the only truly powerful world power is China, no matter how much you may dislike this, it’s true.  Of course there’s a lot we don’t know about China, so we tend to be seeing only what they want us to see.  But that is probably why I feel Orwell’s 1984 is more realistic.  If China continues on it’s path, it may well become the global influencer, and as it’s got a whole lot of control over it’s populace, it may be considered Orwellian.  Be that as it may, the UK still persists in it’s CCTV’s to keep an eye on everything, but tends to miss out on some things as well.

What I do like about “Brave New World” is it’s focus on what people want, and in that respect, it’s pretty darn accurate, we all want to be happy, and breeding a world of happy people could very well be possible, although we’d never understand what we’ve done until it was too late, and then we’d find ourselves amazed at what an individual could do, were he pushed hard enough.  The ‘Savage’ is who we are, even though we don’t always act on our desires, they’re what truly motivates us, and it’s society that is slowly trying to influence us to accept what they deem best for us, for us to conform.  Which isn’t always good. 

During my vacation, I also picked up a couple of paperbacks too.  I finished both “Spider Bones” by Kathy Reichs and “Templar Salvation” by Richard Khoury.  I enjoyed both, but not necessarily equally.

For those who know Kathy Reichs, she’s a Forensic Anthropologist who works for the crime labs in Montreal, Québec and Charlotte, North Dakota.  She written novels based on her knowledge, and experiences.  The first novel was “Deja Dead” and was based in Montreal.  I was immediately intrigued as I knew most of the locations mentioned in the book, and haven’t stopped them since that first one.  Now “Spider Bones” is the 13th novel, and I’m believing that 13 wasn’t her lucky number.  It’s the shortest book of the lot, and seems to be a bit less “filling” than the rest.  It may be that her time is more taken up by the television series based on a younger Temperance Brennan (“Bones” on Fox,) but this book was the least enjoyable of her collection.  And yes, I do have them all.  The characters of the book are known to her readers, but they seemed somewhat lifeless for the most part and kinda left me flat.  I hate to say anything bad about any book, because of my addiction to reading, but I’m hoping her next book, “Flash and Bones” will be a redemption for me.

“Templar Salvation” is the sequal to “The Last Templar” and features the same main characters on the pursuit of lost Templar treasure, which as in the first book, is irrevocably lost to the Mediterranean sea, or is it?

I really enjoyed “The Last Templar,” it was a fun read and had a lot of interesting twists and turns.  It came out around the time that “The DaVinci Code” came out, and is sometimes compared to that novel, but although both seem to deal with Templarism in some respects, they are quite different stories.  And “Templar Salvation” tells us the tale of the supposed treasure trove of ‘codices’ that would put the Templars back on the top as a band of Warrior Monks.  Unfortunately for me, the reach seemed a little far to really catch on two.  Where “The Last Templar” linked it’s clues together well with good deduction and path following, “Templar Salvation” used a few too many “leaps of faith” for me.  It was still a good book, but not as good as the first.  And the closing bit just seems a bit to happy to suit the end of the last novel.

Sorry for taking so much of your time, hopefully next week I’ll have finished “The Scarlet Letter” and I’ll let you know what I think.

Ok, it’s August, and I’ve not posted anything since, what January?  I’m not evil, just easily distracted.

I have been reading, as a matter of fact, I’ve been reading a lot, and in more forms than before.  Yeah, I have books, and kindle on the Nexus One, but I’ve also got the lovely internet and Magazines and the newspaper.  Yeah, I”m back to actually reading the daily news on black and white paper that smudges all over your fingers.  Shouldn’t they have fixed that by now?

Books, both e and not, have been read by the bucket load, I’ll list a few and see if you’ve even heard of them.  Should I separate the books by type?  Ah whatever.

I re-read the Baseball story “Ballpark Blues,” that C.W. Tooke wrote, and was disappointed that he didn’t write anything else.  I did a quick search for him online and apparently he’s a journalist who only wrote the one novel.  I’m hoping he still has some more words to write, because I found the novel quite entertaining.  I’ve read it twice, and that’s always a good thing…  But then again, I read a lot of books twice.

There was also a number of books found on the discount table at Indigo that I particularly enjoyed.  I try to look there for books to try that I might not want to take a chance on spending 10-15$ on normally.  Getting 3 books for 10$ can’t be a bad idea, and the books purchased lately were “Devil’s In Exile” by Chuck Hogan, as well as a William Shatner penned novel about Kirk and Spock in their early days called “Star Trek Academy : Collision Course.”  The Shatner novel may have been actually penned by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, they’re credited as “Collaborators”.

Other books found and read over the past few months include a few classics that were free downloads on the Kindle App on my cellphone, including “Treasure Island,” “The Island of Doctor Moreau,” “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and most recently, “The Scarlet Letter.”  All of these stories are good, but take a bit of getting used to if you’ve been reading contemporary fiction.  The language has either evolved, or devolved, since they’ve been written.  I’ve also got a Kobo App, cause I want all the free books I can get my hands on, and have downloaded and read, including some Star Wars novellas which I found to be very good reads!

One thing I found by accident was a science fiction piece called “His Robot Girlfriend.”  I was surprised to find out later that it was considered an “Adult” read, but even if it does have a few suggestive passages, it’s still a pretty good find for a free book.  And it got me interested in other works that may have been written by this author, Wesley Allison.  I now have to see if I can find other works, and make sure I don’t get surprised by something a little more adult in nature.

Finally, my guilty pleasure read of the past month has been “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and “The Girl who Played with Fire,” both by Stieg Larsson.  I’ve not yet read the third part of the Millennium Trilogy, “The Girl who Kicked a Hornets Nest” but plan on doing so just as soon as the paperback version is released.  Yes, I know some of you have suggested that I should just go out and buy the hardcover version, but I”ll wait, keep the set all looking similar. 

These are fantastic books!  I loved reading them, and had a few sleepless nights trying to put the books down.  They were my favorite reads of the summer, and it looks like I may be reading them again while waiting for the next one to come out.  The other bit of news/rumour I heard recently was that a fourth novel would be coming out, being finished by the late authors girlfriend.  I’ll keep an ear to the ground to find out more about that one.

On a final note, I’d love to hear something from someone on whether to keep the apps on the phone, or to go get a proper e-reader, and if I get an e-reader, which one?  The three contenders, as far as I’m concerned, are Kindle, Nook and Kobo.  Next week will see me get into a little more detail about the Millennium novels, and maybe have a new kindle find to report on.

You can rarely get enough of it..  It’s true, and this past two months (yikes!  it’s already been 2 months) have seen me devour a number of books, and wonder where I had the time stored to do this.  I was supposed to be teling you about them, and then I just got busy reading, programming and paying attention to the family.

Yes, paying attention to the family is important, and then we go to a bookstore together and the drug kicks back in and I want to buy more, and more and more….  yes, it’s almost a disease!

But I did read a number of interesting books, and got started on some in somewhat unusual ways.  As it turns out there’s more than one way to read a book, but you knew that already.  My new smartphone (Google Nexus One, for those who are interested.) has a “Kindle” app.  Yes, download books to your smartphone and read on the somewhat small screen.  Not that hard to do actually…

I was first introduced to kindle by my Brother in Law, who got himself a Kindle (the real thing, not an app) and showed it to me when we went down to DC for Thanksgiving.  I actually like the kindle, it’s a nice size and the text is easy to read with the colors used.  I thought to myself I may have to get myself one of those.  Then the week after we got back, I decided that it was time to upgrade our cell phones, only now they’re called mobile phones, or smartphones, right?  I guess a writer should pay attention to the language, no?  So because our service provider was launching a new network, we got the pick of the litter for free.  niiice…. 

So we both chose the Google Nexus One, and I played with just about every app I could think of that could be even remotely useful to me (or fun for that matter) and also found a great readers app.  No, not just the kindle app, which is great, but a wonderful little app that lets you keep track of your books.  The Book Catalogue is a handy app that will scan the barcodes of your books and create a nice little database of all the books in your collection.  I gave the phone to my daughter who started with the books hanging around my desk, and the number of books catalogued reached 50 very quickly.  Next are the bookshelves and there’s 4 of those, some shelved double depth.  Yeah, I’m a reading addict all right, or maybe a book addict.  But I read all the ones I have, and have read them more than once, uh, more than twice I’d say… 

The handy bit about this app is that it goes with you, when you’re at the bookstore, and you see yet another novel by some prolific author (Hey, is that a new Stephen King Novel I spy!)  you can immediately see if it’s indeed already in your collection.  Will save me those awkward moments when I go back to the store and sheepishly admit I had already purchased that novel the other day, just didn’t get around to reading it yet…

So what have I been reading while I was away?  For starters I stumbled upon a couple more of those lovely Angie Sage Books.  I had read Magyk to the children a year or so ago, and fell in love with the characters.  They’re fun and well written.  So I read “Flyte” and “Physik”, because I have to catch up, there’s another 3 more I thinbk, and I’ve got other series to catch up on as well.  I picked up Stephen King’s “Full Dark, No Stars” which is a collection of 4 novellas, as well as some more Anne Rice novels “Queen of the Damned” and “The Tale of the Body Thief.”  Actually, I haven’t quite finished reading the last one yet.  More to the point, I haven’t finished “Queen of the Damned” yet.  I’ve got to try to keep my reading in order.

But I did finally finish readin the amazing french book “Le Premier Jour” which ended on the most ridiculous cliff hanger ever!  No, not funny ha-ha, but ridiculous in it’s one of those “Who shot J.R.” cliff hangers.  the book ends with our hero finding out that his love may not have died after all and heads off to parts unknown to try and find her!  Whether he does or not is unknown, I’ve yet to beg my sister in law to borrow the next book in the series (and I’m sure there’s a number of them, the way they’re well written and very well liked)

Course now I find myself in an awkward position, do I continue reading these borrowed books, or do I go out and buy them for myself?  They’re good, very good.  They’re so good in fact that I want them for myself.  But I’m like that with many books, and that’s why I have these rather overflowing bookshelves full of books, and I’m running out of room to keep them all.

Well, the books are amazing, and I’ll put in a few notes about all the ones I’ve read over the “holiday” and let you know just what I think of each one of them.  This probably means I”ll have to double post during the week, maybe a tuesday/thursday thing until I catch up.  Meanwhile, continue your own reading, I know, it’s an addiction, and even though we both know that, neither of us is going to tolerate an intervention.

Ah, there’s something about reading that just makes it all worthwhile.  Everytime I open up a book, even it it’s one I’ve opened up before, I find something that tickles my funnybone, and makes my life just that much more enjoyable.

Take “Le Premier Jour” for example.  This past few weeks I’ve been reading it and enjoying it very much, so much so that I’m getting to the stage where I just don’t want to put it down!  That’s always a problem, cause once in a while you have to sleep, even if you *need* to get to the end and find out how it all turns out.  Some of you flip to the last page and spoil it, but I just can’t make myself do that.

And of course, along the way, there are little gems to be discovered.  And boy did I find one this week!

It’s a wonderful part of the book that tackles head on a controversial issue of the day, and does so with a lightness that makes it funny and sweet.  Adrien goes home to visit his mother, and while there she notices a necklace that he has with him in his luggage.  She asks when he got it and he tells her “a friend” left it at his apartment.  She smiles knowingly and proceeds to leave him alone.  That’s where things start to go a little sideways…

Not a lot sideways though, just a little bit.  While on his visit to his mothers for a few weeks, he’s visited by his colleague from work, Walter, and though Walter knows which island Adrien is staying, he doesn’t know exactly where, so proceeds to make himself known, and that he’s looking for Adrien.

Mom assumes that this is “a friend” of Adrien’s, and starts playing cupid.  Yup, mom thinks Adrien is in a same-sex relationship, and rather than get all worked up over it, and upset and calling the local priest to “drive out the demons,” she accepts it, and tried to make it into a stronger relationship…

But she does so very delicately, without being obvious in the least.  The problem is, there is no such relationship, and Adrien is completely in the dark as to her machinations.

It’s warmly written, both mom and aunt Elana try their best to stoke the coals of this relationship, delicately here and there trying to be a good mother and make their lives happy.

I like this for 2 reasons, one, it’s absolutely perfectly written.  The timing, the dialogue, the settings the descriptions, everything fits perfectly to give you a real sense of how Adrien’s mom feels and how much she really wants to help her son with his relationship.  This really makes you feel almost part of the family even, the way it’s written.

The other reason is it does exactly what Adrien’s mom does, it makes no big deal of a same-sex relationship.  For me, this makes perfect sense, frankly I’ve never really understood those who saw reason to get upset, or cause a ruckus just because someone is in such a relationship.  I’m not so “small-sighted” to not see that the world is a huge place, and all sorts of different people populate it.  We firstly don’t all look alike, and we secondly don’t all act alike.  And heaven help us if we did!  This entire passage sums up my whole view on this topic, let it be, encourage love wherever you find it, and live your life.  At the same time, let those who want to live theirs, live them.  It’s incredible that we as a people feel we should change everyone else to our point of view, and to live the way we live. Let it alone, you’ll be surprised at how pleasant live can be when you do.

Ray

This has been bothering me over the past few days, as I’ve been reading the novel by Marc Levy.  It’s been bothering me because at some point last week I decided that the book was a book, within a book, and I can’t seem to get that out of my head.  Now reading anything with some sort of preconceived notion will influence what you read, how you think about what you read, and even the emphasis different words play in the writing.

So what have I based my notion on?  Well,the book is written in two styles, one portion of the book, Adrien, the male lead, writes in the first person of his experiences first in the mountains of Chile, and then when he returns to London after suffering from lack of oxygen and almost bleeding to death on top the mountains.  The second portion of the book is about Keira, the female lead, which is written in the second person, someone looking over her shoulder perhaps, telling us readers what has been happening to her since her return to Paris from Africa after a sandstorm destroys her archaeological dig.

So the two styles of writing tend to favor this notion of mine, and even more so, Adrien is developing a proposal to a group of investors to the college he works with regards to his theory of life on a distant planet similar to ours, which will tell him more about the beginning of life on earth.  His proposal is being put together with help from a colleague who finds it boring, but over time he improves it and perhaps it’s that story about Keira, who’s searching for the beginnings of life on earth directly, which makes up his proposal.

Crazy eh?  I think so as well, but darn it if I can’t get it out of my head.  I’ve almost asked my sister in law, who’s book this is, if this is possible, but then that would ruin it for me if I happen to be correct, and even if I happen to be completely wrong.  Probably the biggest problem is the way I tend to be able to see the end of a popular story long before it’s completed, something I find disturbing when reading, or even watching television.  What got me interested in different authors in the first place was to see if I could find one that surprises me in the end.

To that end, Koontz almost did with Odd Thomas, which I did manage to finish reading last week.  But alas, even Koontz fell short.

That’s all I’ve got to read this week “Le Premier Jour” should you have any suggestions for my next read, please pass them along, I”m always interested in a good read, if not, I’ll re-read one of the hundred or so books in my library!

“Le Premier Jour” is the current french read that I’m working on, although I must say it’s not really work when you can enjoy it so much.  As a bilingual Canadien, I find myself reading frequently in one language, and then wishing I had more opportunity to read in the other.  Being raised by an english mom, and bilingual dad, I found myself going to english school and doing the majority of my reading in english.  But being a Quebecois, I naturally found friends who spoke french, and as all of my father’s family was french, it became a rather large portion of my life.

And still, I don’t read so much in french…  Mostly because I just don’t know all that many good french authors, make that I know almost none at all.  What I’ve learned about french authors I learned from my rather extended family.  First was a series of books my sisters husband was reading, it looked interesting, and I decided to borrow them.  They were wonderful novels and I’ll chat about them at some point in the future.  But one doesn’t always see all that much publicity about french authors.  Maybe they’re just drowned by the plethora of info and news about American authors.

But I love reading, and will do so no matter what chance I get, french, english and if I knew other languages, those too I suppose.

I recently finished reading “Odd Thomas”, written by Dean Koontz, who I”ve become a fast fan of.  The “Odd” character isn’t really that odd, just gifted, or as some may say, cursed.  He sees the dead, and can interact with them to some degree, but they cannot speak to him.  They are soundless, but as we find out at the start of the novel, they are not without their means of communication.  They can touch and affect Odd physically, both directly and indirectly (as in potergeists)  They can even get sound to him, as when Odd picks up a Shell in the front garden and hears what I took to be some animal in heat, or a rutting pig, which turns out to be not so far from the mark.  The book isn’t exactly predictable, it does have it’s merry way with you, but it also tends to stick to a pretty regular pattern.  As an intuitive fellow, I still found some parts to be rather surprising, but some were easily foretold.

All in all, I enjoyed “Odd Thomas” and will continue to find the books by Dean Koontz appealing.  I’ll also be sure to pick up the other novels in this growing series (3 others as I write this,) as well as any other books of his that catch my fancy.

…

Marc Levy is the fellow who wrote “Le premier Jour” and he is only one of very few french authors I have had the chance to read. The first being “Le Chien Jaune” by Georges Simenon, which I admit I first read in High School, because I had to.  I did enjoy it though, and to this day parts of that story pop into my head.  It looks like Marc Levy’s book may well have the same effect.

Being a lover of family,I like the way the book starts out, a mother and “adopted” son have one of those particularly familial moments, just before the mother is force to leave her son behind for an indeterminate amount of time.  How long?  I’ll let you know when I find out.  I’ve not yet gotten far into the novel, but it has gripped me and I find myself putting it down with difficulty.  Along with Mother and Son, another Gentleman appears to be wending his way into the story, and should prove to make for an interesting “family” unit when they finally all get together, or so my reader’s instinct tells me.

From far away Africa and the Andes mountain ranges and back to London and Paris.  The investigation into the start of mankind begins, and presumably, ends, or comes very close to discovery.  I look forward to getting to the end of this book, but I also rue the day, as with every book I enjoy, I dread finishing it, for it will leave me once again on the prowl for something new to read…