Another Delay

Yet again I focused more on actual reading than on keeping this updated. So here goes another marathon post.

I finished The Doctor Digs a Grave pretty easily (although I did stay up until 2am to finish it). I quite enjoyed it and have plans to find the next book in the series soon. It was easy to read, hard to put down, and the characters were quite likable as well.

The next day I started Spirit Bound by Richelle Mead - this is the fifth Vampire Academy book. I mostly enjoyed it - although it seems again that people are giving Rose too hard a time. Also, I agree with her and some of the other characters - the new rule change is NOT a good idea. I was extremely annoyed with the way the book ended - it's just like An Echo in the Bone - every things left hanging, unresolved. The only benefit to that is that it seems to guarantee another book in the series. Again, I stayed up late trying to finish the book (around 2am with eighty or ninety pages left, I voted I just wasn't going to make it). So I finished it on Tuesday morning instead.

Right after finishing that I moved to The Making of the Pope 2005 by Andrew Greeley. This was mostly a fascinating book. Fr. Greeley got a bit repetitive at times, but I suspect that was related to the nature of the book, as mostly journal-type entries. To an extent I suspect I should have read his other "conclave" book first, but, once I'd started this I figured I'd finish it. Although Fr. Greeley seemed initially unenthusiastic about Cardinal Ratzinger as Pope, by the end he may have changed his mind a bit. I would enjoy speaking with him about this, now that he's been Pope for 5 years. Often Fr. Greeley's comments about JPII disagreed with my own experience, but I enjoyed seeing a new perspective on it. It would be interesting to be able to see what would have happened if he'd been more what people were expecting when he was elected in 1978. I did quite enjoy the sociological job description for the Pope that Fr. Greeley spoke of - "a hopeful, holy man who smiles."

Having finished that (again pretty quickly - again staying up later than I should have) I moved to Fr. Greeley's other Pope book, The Making of the Popes 1978: The Politics of Intrigue in the Vatican. This was also an interesting book to read. I had more difficulty in understanding all of Fr. Greeley's comments to the extent I'd been able to with the first one of these I'd read - I didn't know/remember what JPI's name was before becoming Pope - although I did figure it out partway through the first conclave story - Albino Luciani (sp?). I rather wonder what life/the Church/my faith experience would have been like if he hadn't died so quickly (I also wonder if the rumor's of poisoning are accurate). I was surprised by Fr. Greeley's description of Cardinal Wojtyla. Fr. Greeley says he's a large man, with broad shoulders - football linebacker type. I'd never gotten that impression myself, even in the photos of him as a young man - maybe it's the in person part that changes that, or maybe my impression was just incorrect.

In the middle of reading that, a book I'd learned of from the two Pope books arrived from the ILL office, so I quickly read it first. It was shorter and I knew I'd be able to finish it in time to return it to the library the next day. Women I've Met is a collection of Fr. Greeley's poetry. I'd read some of the poems in his autobiographies already, but I still enjoyed them much - I'm thinking of buying my own copy of this book, but as it's no longer in print, I have to decide where to get it.

After finishing both of those, I moved on to a second Robin Hathaway book, Scarecrow: A Mystery. I'd found this at the same time I got the other one - this one's from a different series, though. I enjoyed this one at least as much as the last one, and possibly even more. I don't remember if there're more books in this series or not yet, but I seriously hope there are.

I quickly finished that book and moved on to Piers Anthony's Key to Survival, the fifth and presumably final book in the ChroMagic series - the author's note at the end left a possible (but not entirely probable) hint of a coming sixth book. I enjoyed the story pretty well, although as with a few other series I've read, I think the first book was my favorite. A lot of time passed between this book and the previous one - almost 20 years. I mostly guessed who the Makers were before Havoc and the others figured it out, but not as early as Piers seems to think people will claim to have known it (I figured it out in the middle of the book, but had no clue in the other books). I'm not sure anyone could accurately say they knew all along, as we hadn't heard of the Makers until this book.

In the middle of reading this book, I read a shorter book I'd found at the library: Letters from the Inside by John Marsden. The story was about the meaning of friendship, and one way it can form - not the normal way. It was quite interesting getting to know both girls, but at times I wanted to know more than what they were sharing in their letters (the book is a collection of the letters they wrote back and forth to each other). Although it is in keeping with the format of the rest of the book, I really wish we'd been told exactly what happened to the one of them (I can't remember her name for sure) - I kept expecting that the other girl (I can't remember her name for sure either) would get a letter from someone else telling her what's up, but that never happens.

I'm now reading Ted Dekker's newest (? - at least new-ish) book, The Bride Collector. So far the book is quite intriguing, although the one character is a bit disturbing to read about - his mind is rather strange at times. The main character is working on a serial killer case they're calling the Bride Collector - a man who's been killing women and gluing them to the wall (he also drills into their heels and drains all of their blood). I presume the killer will be caught, but because of the rain, I'm not that far into the book yet. I look forward to finishing it, though - I want to know what happens.