Catching up. . . with Six Titles for the Price of One Post . . .

Wow! Not sure how those five weeks got away from me, but I'm back, with a sextet of titles to share.
1. Lee Child's Blue Moon, the latest Jack Reacher. Not sure why I enjoy this series when it's so much more action-packed than usually interests me, but I posted a page on my Instagram reading account that exemplifies what Child can do with a sentence--his prose style matches any gunslinger's virtuosity, seriously. It either works for you or it doesn't, I guess, and Reacher and I go way back. . . .plus he's getting on (although a youngster, mid 40's), and that intrigues me enough that I'll keep reading future volumes. . .

2. Kathleen Jamie is a Scottish poet and essayist I've only just learned of, and Surfacing convinced me that I must read more from her.  Besides what I scribbled in my Reading Journal (above), I also said a few words in my IG post.

3. Ann Patchett, The Dutch House I loved this! The story itself, several of the characters in particular, the setting (different views of New York through different periods), the basic conceit or engine which drives the story (a brother and sister are treated horribly by their stepmother after their father dies unexpectedly, and the brother's life is shaped by his sister's need to. . . well, I'd better not say more). . . but I also so admired Patchett's structuring technique, the way she grabs fabric from past and future onto her needle in the teeniest stitches -- sometimes just an adverbial phrase, a parenthetical clause -- to pleat a wonderfully intricate garment or quilt or tapestry. Yes, the analogy falls apart here, but if you read this, perhaps you'll see what I mean. It's quite mesmerising. . . IG post here -- and I wrote a bit about her earlier novel Commonwealth a few years ago

4. Katherine Gilbert Murdock's The Book of Boy, which I read aloud to my granddaughter. If you're looking for a good novel for an Eleven, this could be it. . . (this review captures something important about the book:  Somehow Murdock has managed to write something simultaneously archaic in form and incredibly enticing to the modern eye.  And the reviewer, Elizabeth Bird goes on to say, Boy is the kind of character you can’t help but love. You want to go with him on this journey and, more to the point, you want him to see it to its end. If Boy is the living embodiment of kindness and joy, I can think of no better guide for young readers to encounter. We have a lot of dark, depressing, necessary books out there. Once, just once, let’s enjoy the one unafraid to let a little light and laughter in. So very apropos of our current situation, no?

4. In case you've been wondering, while we still have a faint hope for our family gathering in Sicily this June, that possibility grows weaker each day. My preparatory reading for an eventual visit to Sicily, however, continues, and allows me to travel while restricted to home for the duration. . . . I can even travel that way with my husband -- I read Marlena de Blasi's That Summer in Sicily to him over several weeks of his delicious dinners. My impressions below -- recommended!

And one last title, another for armchair travel. . . although perhaps better to read on your stationery bicycle with Felicity Cloake providing the scenery to distract you from your tiring legs. . . and building your appetite further through her mouth-watering descriptions of eating her way through France.

That's it for now. I do have a few more books to tell you about, and now that we're confined to home, perhaps it won't take me another month to do that.

Now tell me, what are you reading? any connections with what I've been reading? any recommendations? I'm also curious about whether you're using this period to finally hunker down with whatever big tome you've been meaning to get to for ages or are you finding you need lighter fare right now. Best distractions you've found this week?  Go!