Tuesday's Book Review

I went back to old standbys this week: Maggie Sefton and Joanne Fluke. I started with book 1 that they wrote and have been working to their more current works. I am still reading Lilian Jackson Braun's "Cat who..." books and Baroness Orczy's "Scarlet Pimpernel" books so I have been reading non-stop.

I love Joanne Fluke's mysteries. First of all she writes a delightful mystery and secondly she always includes a group of recipes within her books. There are several in this group that I have written down to try.

Maggie Sefton writes books centered around a knitting store. Her books always include a knitting pattern and a recipe. That is a bonus as well as a fun mystery. These are both what I call 'fluffy mysteries' because they are not intense dramas like "Pelican Brief'" but just fun reads. I love Carolyn Hart mysteries and she is the one that started me reading these mysteries in the first place. I was sad to read that she is not embracing the 'eletronic book' genre and refuses to have her books published on Kindle or the the other electronic books. Probably because her books center around a 'bookstore' and it is true - a Kindle is not good for a bookstores business.

I never know from week to week what I will read. I did try to read "Roots" by Alex Haley again. I had read it before (it took me forever when it first came out). We are supposed to be reading it for out bookgroup. I must admit I am glad I won't be here for bookgroup this month because I just could not get into again. I guess because there were so many lawsuits against Haley after he wrote it and then it was proven that he made up most of the early part - so what is to say he didn't fabricate all of the book? It is in the biographical section and has always been represented as a history of his family but he has never been able to document any of it. Genealogists are much more sticky about that now than they were 30 years ago. Some say it can't be documented but one group did do a family group sheet on Alex Haley - this was not his family. I have a hard time reading a lie. Reprint it as a fictitious novel (which I thought it had been) and maybe I will handle it better. Reading it as a biography - I cannot do.