I love to read. As a kid through my teens and into college I read probably hundreds of books. I grew up with the Nancy Drew mystery series which is probably where I first got my love of that genre and why I still collect book series featuring female sleuths.
One series of a slightly different nature, is written by the duo of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. This series features a mysterious hero: FBI Special Agent Pendergast. This series of novels is both classic mystery who-done-it but also it is dark, moody and creepy. Not a horror genre fan -well, except for the tv show Walking Dead [I did write about that] but add a bit of creep to mystery and you've got a "can't put it down 'til you're done" book. And that's what these are that Preston and Child have written.
Then add really truly good writing. With vocabulary. The photo to the left of "The Cabinet of Curiosities," is in my collection and is the second in the Pendergast series. Here's a nice taste of good writing right at the beginning of chapter two:
"...Nora Kelly looked out from the window of her fourth-floor office over the copper rooftops of the New York Museum of Natural History, past the cupolas and minarets and gargoyle-haunted towers, across the leafy expanse of Central Park. Her eye came to rest at last on the distant buildings along Fifth Avenue: a single wall, unbroken and monolithic, like the bailey of some limitless castle, yellow in the autumn light...."
You can just picture it in your mind's eye can't you? And, wait, what was that phrase, "...like the bailey of some limitless castle...?" What's a 'bailey?' Now there's a word you don't read everyday. Looked it up and it simply means outer wall of a castle. The authors could have said that, but it sounds so much richer using 'bailey.'
That's one of the things I like about their books: the rich variety of vocabulary - word choices - that they use. I consider myself well-read and fairly intelligent but must confess to having to use the dictionary more than once when reading of Special Agent Pendergast's adventures. Words like: nugatory. *funny thing about this word, one of the characters in the story is a journalist and he has to look up the word! defenestrating: to throw out a window; or the word ratiocination which means a conclusion or proposition arrived at by following logical reasoning. Yep, I had to look up each of these words. What a joy is reading!
It's not just books...you can find some mighty fine reading in blogs...and not the ones you might think. I discovered a blog that is associated with a commercial business website called The Violet Barn. Since my husband and I moved to this northern California community last fall, I started a collection of African Violets...something I've been wanting to do for quite awhile. Right now I have six of the "regular" size plants and coming by mail later this week is a small collection of miniature violets I've ordered from The Violet Barn. While exploring their website I noted the blog and decided to take a look. It seems that it hasn't been updated since late in 2011, but I have to say I enjoyed reading the posts...so well written! I especially enjoyed the first article titled "Let's Get the Ball Rolling." The author/owner writes of his history with violets and his business in both an entertaining, intelligent and informative way.
I learn about many different blog writers at the blogging community BlogHer as well as at Alltop. Recently at BlogHer I found a do-it-yourself article by blogger Megan O Andersen titled "Miniature Gardens: Shell-Potted Succulents." Not only was it enjoyable
to read, but Megan provided a DIY project that I immediately wanted to do! So I went out and got my supplies and the photo to the right shows the results. I'm going to display them on the shelves with my mini violets - I 'll post a photo later next week once 1)the violets arrive and 2)my husband gets the shelves on the wall.
There's one more blog I'd like to mention and it's at the new social networking site Stage 32 [for film, television and theater creatives]. You don't have to join the site to read the blog - you can find it on the menu at the very bottom of the visiting homepage. Here's a question: wouldn't you think a motion picture screenwriter would be a good writer in general? I think so and wasn't surprised when I read the five part post series titled "Writer Held Hostage" by screenwriter and novelist Doug Richardson. I don't want to give away anything so I encourage you to read them for yourself to be entertained and get a peek into the life of a Hollywood screenwriter.
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