WWW.WEDNESDAY

WWW. WEDNESDAY asks three questions to prompt you to speak bookishly. To participate, and to see how other book lovers responded, click here. 

PS I no longer participate in WWW.WEDNESDAY via that link because her blog won't accept Blogger comments. I mention this only to save you the frustration I experienced trying to link up

1. What are you currently reading? Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen. I got this book for Christmas 2017 from my dear friend Henry. It was the last holiday we spent together before his accident changed everything. For a long time I couldn't pick it up, but now it's time.

 

If you saw the recent Springsteen biopic, Deliver Me from Nowhere, or heard Bruce talk about his dad during one of his concerts, you know their relationship with difficult and complicated. Now I understand that's only the tip of the ice berg. The Springsteens were at times a multi-generational household, and his grandmother made everything darker. It was a lot for a little boy to handle. He tells the story with tremendous compassion – he's very "everyone was doing the best they could" about it. But still, I want to give young Bruce a hug and reassure him.

 

Because it's so intense, I'm not consuming it in greedy gulps, the way I expected to. I hope to get it done by year-end, but I'm not sure I will.

  

2. What did you recently finish reading? Miami, It's Murder by Edna Buchanan. This was a very gritty book. Our heroine, Britt Montero, is a reporter on the crime beat for a major Miami newspaper. Set in the 1990s, newspapers were thriving and well-funded and always competing to get to the crime scene first, before the TV cameras arrive.

 

So Britt finds her plate reportorial full with a serial rapist and a cold case that may involve the current front runner for governor. Both stories are compelling and it's natural that she be at the center. Buchanan makes Miami feel like a very real place and at times I really did smell the sea air and develop a craving for a Cuban pork sandwich like Britt prefers.

 

But it was a little too intense for me. I would have preferred more attention on the plotting – which was very good – and a little less on the "action." The final plot twist caught me by surprise, and I appreciated it, but it could have been resolved more realistically and perhaps more impactfully without all that violence to distract me.

3. What will you read next?  Something Christmas-y.