Feeling Bookish: Craving Dick Francis

A friend and I went to see Secretariat tonight – in fact I got back less than an hour ago. I loved the movie to bits – loved the way they built suspense, so that even though you KNOW what the outcome of all those Triple Crown races really was, you’re still completely invested in the story, and bouncing in your seat, waiting for the caller to utter those famous six words: “And down the stretch they come…”

As the credits rolled, I told my friend that I really wanted to curl up with a Dick Francis novel. Those are about the British version of horse racing – steeplechase and grass tracks, not the fast sprints on turf that American racing – but it doesn’t matter. They’re cozy, horse-y novels with great characters, and just enough mystery to be compelling.

Sadly I have no Dick Francis in my library – at some point I must have purged them all…

Time to check the Kindle options, I suppose, because sometimes the best multivitamin there can be is an evening with dogs to cuddle and books to read.

2009 in Review

It’s a new year here at Bibliotica, which means it’s time to take a look at my stats for the old one. If I have any kind of bookish resolution it’s to be better about logging and reviewing everything I read, for my own sake, if nothing else. I like to see how my tastes have changed and evolved over time.

How did I do?

In the year 2009, not including books I forgot to catalogue, I read 85 books, for an average of 1.635 books per week. My best months were January and May, with 12 books each, and my worst was November, when I logged only three.

(As an aside, I must say that if there were any kind of mechanical breakdown insurance for the brain, books would be it. When I was trying to cope with a miscarriage in May, books were my escape, and the savers of my sanity.)

I don’t generally pick favorites – my favorites change too often to keep up! – but Laurie R. King and Cleo Coyle (in her various guises) made up a significant portion of my reading list, and Diane Johnson’s Lulu in Marrakech is the one that most disappointed me.

I’m sort of in book limbo right now. I have stacks of stuff to read, but none of it is really demanding my attention. I have, however logged my first book of the new year already: Alice Kimberly’s The Ghost and the Dead Man’s Library.