Starting Up At the Villa by W. Somerset Maugham today.

Recent Purchases

Using my Barnes and Noble membership coupon, I got 15% off of The Path of Razors by Chris Marie Green and I also purchased Up At the Villa by W. Somerset Maugham.

For about a year, I've been having a love affair with Maugham. I've been to used book stores looking for copies of his short stories and other novels. Love him!

The Strain

by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan.

I have to start off by saying I like vampire books. Oh yes, I've been obsessed with the Twilight series (until I read Breaking Dawn - yuck) and I've read Nancy A. Collins' books, the Bluebloods series and several of the Sookie Stackhouse books.
But I've never been a true horror fan. I am not a Stephen King lover- although I think Dolores Claiborne and The Stand were truly genius. I can count about 3 Dean Koontz books that I really like...so horror just isn't my favorite genre.
I received an advance reader copy of The Strain at TLA and didn't get to it for a couple of months.
This is definitely horror and it's definitely a vampire book but it's nothing like you imagine.
There is no swoon-worthy bloodsucker here. The starring vampire is bonechillingly frightening and you may have nightmares after reading this book.
I couldn't put it down. I've never read del Toro or Hogan but if they are as good separate as they are together, I can't wait to read everything they've written.

Apparently, this is going to be a trilogy. I am not a patient person when it comes to waiting on the next book in a series. I hope they hurry!

Blindness

by Jose Saramago.

The idea and premise for this book is good. A large group of people are "infected" with some virus-type thing that causes sudden blindness and fear of an epidemic causes the government to segregate the blind and all of those who have had contact with them and then just leave them to their own devices.
The very idea is horrifying but I couldn't finish the book.

I'm sure it's simply a personality issue but Saramago's lack of punctuation really confused me. I kept wondering which character the dialogue belonged too.

I'm of the mind that life is too short to struggle through certain books, so I abandoned this one.

I noticed on Amazon that there is to be or has been a movie based on Blindness. I look forward to watching the movie more than trying to read the book again.

When You Are Engulfed in Flames

This David Sedaris book is his latest. I'm a huge fan and have read pretty much everything he has written. Naked will always be my favorite and Me Talk Pretty One Day is a close second but I really enjoyed Flames.
This one seems to delve deeper into Sedaris' social anxiety disorder as he gets older.
Whereas in the first few books, I enjoyed (is that even politically correct?) his stories that described his adventures with OCD.

Towards the end, Sedaris counts down his reason and techniques for quitting smoking. He moves to Japan, of all things, to distract himself! His stories of taking Japanese language classes and the hilarious Japanese to English translations all over Tokyo are awesome.

I finished this book in two days.

Score another one for David Sedaris!

The Reagan I Knew

I don't normally read political books or much non-fiction but this book intrigued me and when I told a friend about it, he sent it to me for my birthday.
I'm still working on it but it's pretty interesting.
I was expecting more of a Reagan bio...although I don't know why considering William F. Buckley, Jr. titled it "The Reagan I Knew", not "The Reagan Biography".
WFB included many letters from both Ronald and Nancy Reagan, plus his own letters to them.
It's a nice peek into the relationship WFB had with the Reagans and his court-side seat for Ronald Reagan's rise to the presidency.

Summer Reading

I started and finished Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami.

Although Murakami can confuse the hell out of me, somehow, I don't mind because it's all written so beautifully.
I was geared up for this big reveal at the end and when it didn't quite come, I still didn't mind because I enjoyed the journey.

I just started Blindness by Jose Saramago. I had other books to read ahead of this one but this is a borrowed book so I only have so much time with it.