Scattershot

The mystery of mysteries

I've been thinking a lot about mysteries this week-end. That's probably because I've just spent a good part of two days reading them--one mediocre one and one very good one (When Will There Be Good News, the latest in the series by Kate Atkinson). Reading mysteries is one of my favorite forms of relaxation. The mystery is why.

    I puzzle about that. Mysteries almost always involve violence, usually a murder, and I have a horror of violence. I can't stand to watch anything violent on television. (Law and Order is about as much as I can take, probably because the violence has usually taken place already when the show begins.) I will watch a violent movie only if I've heard so much about it that I feel I'll be missing out if I don't know what people are talking about, and even then I will watch only when it comes out on DVD and I can see it at home where I can leave the room in the awful parts. But violence in mysteries? I can handle that.

    I suspect that strong plots are part of the reason I like mysteries, but I don't like just any strong plot. I don't generally like what I call "fluff mysteries"--mysteries on a theme like needlepoint or gardening or tree pruning, for example. I like well-written mysteries like those by Elizabeth George. Hers have strong plots and excellent writing.

    Another reason may be that in a mystery you know that the main problem (Whodunit?) will always have a solution. I like solutions. I like seeing problems solved.

    Beyond that, I don't know. I was drawn to mysteries as a kid, and I'm drawn to them now. I wonder if other mystery lovers out there have any ideas about their appeal. I'm curious....

Satisfying fluff

This week-end I grabbed the latest Janet Evanovich mystery off the "new" shelf at the library and spent a satisfying Sunday afternoon reading it in between loads of laundry. Her books will never make any recommended lists of great literature, but who cares? They make me laugh.

    I make no apologies for what I call my "fluff" tastes. Fluff tastes are those things I love to indulge in now and then for absolutely no other reason than that they are pleasant. I'll read Janet Evanovich or Jennifer Weiner or Andrew McCall Smith and know I'm going to enjoy the experience, just as once in a blue moon I will stop on the way home from work and buy a little bag of greasy, crunchy chicken wings. I know I'll enjoy those, too.

    Sometimes--especially when my husband is out of town--I'll flip to a "fluff" movie on the Hallmark channel. I'll know that the girl and the guy will wind up together in the end and all will be well. No one will be tortured or murdered. Things will be fine. Sometimes--not always--that's all I want from a movie. Niceness. Safety. Things to be fine.

    I may come by this trait naturally. My father reads a lot of westerns, but before he commits to a book he always turns to the last page to see if the guy gets the girl. If he doesn't, he won't read the book. In picking out westerns to give him, my sister and I have learned to follow this rule explicitly. There is no varying from it. Period.

  I read serious things in the New Yorker magazine every week, but I also love catching up on all the old People magazines when I go to a salon to get my hair cut. Fluff. I read two newspapers each morning and part of another, but I'll also turn on "The Soup" sometimes at night to watch funny "entertainment" news. Fluff. I'll go to the theater and enjoy a serious play like "Proof," but I'll also go and get a huge kick out of a good production of "Greater Tuna." Fluff.

    There are limits to fluff, though. There are certain popular fluff authors whose work I can't read. Fluff has to be decently written before I can stand it, and sometimes things are just, well, too fluffy, even for me.

    People who love her books will hate me for this, but I could get through only half of the first book in the "Twilight" series. When I found myself counting how often the author uses some form of the word "smolder" or smirk" on each page, I knew the book was not for me. The writing simply started driving me nuts. Luckily, my sister has read the entire series, so I just made her tell me what happens, from start to finish. Now I know what people are talking about and I got to enjoy the story without having to endure the smolders and smirks.

    I can go on to fluff more suited to me.

A good read

I just finished, and thoroughly enjoyed, Kristin Gore's second novel Sammy's House (the sequel to her first, Sammy's Hill). For anyone who wants a good summer read, I recommend it. The quirky main character is a goofy delight—you just have to fall in love with her.

Both books are set in the White House, where the main character works, and you get a real sense—without specific references to either Republicans or Democrats—of how crazy and intense it must be to work there. As the author is Al Gore's daughter, I assume she must have some insider knowledge of what goes on.

Anyway, I found both her books highly entertaining and often laugh-out-loud funny. Some scenes still make me smile, just thinking about them!

More info:

http://www.amazon.com/Sammys-House-Kristin-Gore/dp/1401309496/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218125136&sr=8-1

Book club wallflower

I'm the only female reader I know who isn't in a book club. That puzzles me, a little. Friends who actually belong to book clubs tell me about their club picks. They ask me for reading suggestions. I feel almost as though I'm part of the book club world, even though I don't actually belong to a club.

     A friend asked me to suggest a book for her club, and I did. The group loved it. I recommended another. They loved it. My friend said the group members said they wanted to read "anything" I suggested.

     So I suggested another book. It had a bit of sex in it. Evidently, that was not okay for this group. I fell from my pedestal.

     Sigh. I have so little patience for that kind of thing. (Could this be one of the reasons I'm not in a club? Hmmm...Actually, I think it has more to do with lack of time. I think I'd rather spend book club time actually reading.)

     So, because I'm not in a book club, I want to recommend a book for those who are. (Beware: one of the characters in it does have sex.) It is a book that is hard to categorize or label, but I really loved it. It's called The Monsters of Templeton, by Lauren Groff.

     Check out what others have to say at her web site: The Monsters of Templeton. If you like good writing and a hard-to-put-down story, you will probably like this debut novel by a talented writer.