Almost The Last of 2010

I'm working on finishing The Leopard's Prey by Suzanne Arruda by the end of the day or night. If I do, I'll have read 159 books this year plus listened to about ten or twelve audio books.

My top ten books for 2010 are below listed in alpha order. I wonder why we always do ten when it's so hard to narrow the tops down to only 10. The last two are the very hardest to choose.


Penny, Louise, Bury Your Dead This is the only Book I gave an A+ to so I'll put it at the top of the list. I read The Brutal Telling in 2010 and I gave it an A also but I didn't want to count two by the same author.


Connelly, Michael, The Scarecrow.  I liked The Reversal almost as much
Ellory, R J, The Anniverary Man
Giarratano, Leah, Voodoo Doll.  I read 3 of hers but I liked this one the best. 
Hart, John, The Last Child
Hyland, Adrian, Gunshot Road 
Larsson, Stieg, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. This ended being my fave of the three
Nesbo, Jo, The Snowman. I love the Harry Hole books.
Rotenberg, Robert, Old City Hall
Theorin, Johan, The Darkest Room

I had a really good year with most of the books falling in the I really like or I liked categories. I only had six I didn't like at all which is a very small percentage. I'm looking forward to more good books in 2011 and participating in a couple of reading challenges.

Having Fun

I think I'm having fun with this but I'm wasting a lot of time doing it. I've added a picture but don't know why it's so large, linked up with a couple other blogs but haven't figured out how to show the link, signed up for 2 reading challenges linked to my blog and think I did neither correctly. I'm having a good laugh at my ineptitude anyway.

The year is winding down and I want to finish the book I'm reading now, Barbara Fradkin's Once Upon a Time and read both R J Ellory's Saints of New York and Anatomy of a Ghost by my all time fave Andrew Taylor. Am I up to this challenge? I think I'll go read and see if I can do it.

Moving On

Now that Christmas is over and a new year is starting, I'm ready to sign up for some reading challenges. So far I am ready to commit to a World Wide challenge and Kerrie's Alphabet Weekly Report. They both seem like fun and will give me a push to try something a little different.

This week I read the newest Stuart Pawson, A Very Private Murder, the 13th Charlie Priest mystery. Stuart Pawson doesn't receive the publicity he should, imo. since he writes a consistently interesting police procedural.  D I Charlie Priest is someone I always enjoy revisiting. I didn't think this was one of his best books but I still enjoyed it a lot. Liked rather than loved.

One of the crimes in this book is a bunch of burglaries done by two men armed with a pit bull terrier. It seems threatening people with the pit bull makes them agreeable to being robbed. At the same time, Charlie is trying to find out who is responsible for graffiti written on a plaque at a new shopping mall until the Mayor of Heckley is found dead and Charlie is working on a more interesting case.

Was it the week and my attitude because I also read An Impartial Witness by Charles Todd and thought it wasn't up to par either. This is the second in the Bess Crawford series, one that I liked but didn't love. Bess recognizes a woman in a train station from a picture belonging to one of her patients and then finds out the woman was murdered. After she informs Scotland Yard about seeing this woman right before her death, she becomes involved in solving her murder. It seemed a bit repetitive and mundane even with several murders and a suicide but maybe because amateur sleuths are not my favorites.

Time to see if I can sign up for the 2011 challenges.

Dreary Tuesday

Wow, our mayor committed suicide this morning and it's such a shock that it's all everyone is talking about. Of course, there are many speculations about why but nothing verified yet. My thoughts are how sad for his family especially at this time of the year; it will be a reminder for them every year at what should be a happy time of the year.

Finished Left Early, Took My Dog and I really enjoyed it. Kate Atkinson has a different writing style, I think, where the stories appear non-related and then all of a sudden they all comes together and everything is linked. There were a lot of unanswered questions at the end of this one and I'm wondering if we'll find out more next book or if that's it.

After Elyse has swim practice, I have to go back out in the cold tonight for dinner with my Diamond Group.   It will be fun once we get settled inside with a nice glass of wine and good company. The nice thing about swim practice is that I sit and read for an hour plus instead of fiddling diddling around on the computer.  Adieu.

Catching Up

I don't seem to be keeping up this so: New Resolution--write something every day. Can't share a blog with nothing in it and I need the blog to sign up for some reading challenges.

I've read about 65 pages in Kate Atkinson's Started Early, Took My Dog which I'm enjoying. It's a nice change of pace from Blood Men by Paul Cleave. I especially like the way Jackson Brodie rescued the dog. So far I have no idea where the book is going but I think I have met all of the characters in this book, the fourth in the series (I think).

So far I have Tracy Waterhouse, a security chief, who just bought a child from a woman who didn't belong to the child and Tilly, an aged actress who  seems to have the onset of Alzheimer's or Dementia.

I like this book cover and I'm going to have to see which one of the ruins it is.