Throwing Books

I finished The Body in the Library last week and have been having a hard time deciding on the next book to read. I picked up Fool Moon, the second in the Dresden Files series. About 30 pages in and I can't get into it. Maybe part of it is that they adapted this story for the television series and I already know "whodunnit." But the biggest part is the way Dresden talks about himself. "I growled" and "I barked" are used as dialogue tags several times. Okay, the book is about werewolves. Cute. Except people don't talk about themselves like that. And one of my nitpicks with the first book resurfaced over and over in this one. He keeps describing himself as tall, lanky, long-legged. I get it. You're tall. You don't have to tell me three times every chapter. So I put it down.

Then I picked up The Cat Who Dropped A Bombshell, the 28th book in the series by Lillian Jackson Braun. That is the book that I literally threw across the room two chapters in. All of the characters spent those two chapters telling each other things they already knew. Maybe it's a case of author malaise after so many books about the same characters. Maybe the editors just didn't have it in them to read another book about KoKo and Yum Yum either. Whatever the case, I just couldn't do it. I may go back and look at an earlier installment to see if it is the "curse of number 28" or just indicative of the genre. Which would make me very sad.

There are some good cozies out there. I have read them. So I'm not quite ready to give up on the genre altogether. But it is frustrating to run into so many bad ones.

Jewelry Post

Ali very gently reminded me yesterday that I haven't made a jewelry-related post in a long time. That's probably because I haven't actually made any jewelry yet. I started to on Friday but felt like I still didn't know enough to accomplish anything. Yesterday I bought Jewelry Making & Beading for Dummies. It explains all those terms and techniques I couldn't quite figure out from the magazines I had. So I should be able to have a new pair of earrings done by Saturday. That's the deadline Ali gave me for completing my first project.

I also picked up a copy of Stardust while I was at the bookstore yesterday. I've been reading all the posts and comments by Ali, Deb and Jenny about Neil Gaiman. It may be time to check him out. Deb's offered to lend me Neverwhere and American Gods if I like Stardust. I'm not a big fantasy fan (except for Butcher, who really writes mysteries), but we'll see.

Dresden Files

Some may wonder why I've listed Storm Front, the first book in the Dresden Files series, under "Mysteries I've Read". Because it fits. It's not a cozy, but still...

Harry Dresden is a private investigator. He also happens to be a wizard, but he's a wizard trying to find out Who Done It. This book could just as easily fit on the Mystery shelf at my local Big Bookstore as in the Fantasy section.

Plan to see more of the Dresden books listed soon. I like Harry's smart-alecky tone. After hearing that James Marsters--Spike from Buffy and Angel--read the audiobooks, I may have to indulge in one or two of those as well.

The Dresden Files television show is also worth a watch on SciFi Channel. They've changed a few of the specifics, but got Harry just right.