Knitting and Reading, Two of My Favorite Things!

 “Summertime and the living is easy…”  Time to read and knit. A few of the bloggers I follow have been posting what they’re reading and asking for responses in kind.

See the first sock I’m still knitting? I didn’t knit yesterday, one of those “off” days. 😎 What’s on the books? As a Christmas present a few years ago, my husband gave a Kindle to me. My inside reaction was, “I’m not going to like this. I love the feel and smell of real books.” He had pre-loaded it with the latest book from one of my favorite authors, S is for Silence by Sue Grafton. Not wanting to hurt his feelings, I read the Kindle book. Boy, I admit when I’m wrong! I LOVE my Kindle. Visualize a loooong car trip and running out of books somewhere in Idaho, no town to be seen for miles! No problem, download a book on Kindle! Done! 😎 As birthday presents for each of my 4 kids this year, I bought Kindles. The three girls and I share an account since we can share books easily that way. Son Michael just had his birthday last week. Since he’ll be going back to Afghanistan at the end of the month, he’ll be able to get books to read. 😎

First, I LOVED the Harry Potter movies which surprised both me and my family. I don’t usually like fantasy books or movies. Go figure. Daughter Darcey and I are the only family members who haven’t read the Harry Potter books, even though they are in one of our bookcases. 😎 Amazon Prime allows you to check out a free book a month through Kindle’s lending-library. Darcey and I decided it was time for us to read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling. Since I’d seen the movie, a few times, as I read images of the movie scene popped into my head. It would have been interesting to have read it first, as other family members did, to compare the movie with what I’d already had envisioned my head.

Both Barb and I are mystery junkies! Every Christmas my hubs buys three mystery books for me from authors he doesn’t think I’ve read. He usually is spot on! This past Christmas he bought Borkmann’s Point by Hakan Nesser. Nesser is a Swedish author and his main protagonist is Chief Inspector Van Veeteren. This is the second book in the series. Unlike the other mysteries I read, the series is set in an imaginary coastal town of Kaalbringen.  Not wanting to give away the ending, I’ll post the blurb. ” Chief Inspector Van Veeteren is called to the sleepy coastal town of Kaalbringen to assist the local police in the investigation of two recent ax murders. Soon the case turns from bad to worse when another body turns up and one of Van Veetern’s colleagues, a young female detective, disappears without a trace. Now Van Veeteren must find the killer, and, he hopes, his colleague, before anyone else comes to harm.” Enjoyed this book. I just wish it took place in a real town. I like to look at maps to see where the town is and image what the place looks like. A good summer read.

A trip to Costco lead me to my next Scandinavian book and author, The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo. My question is: Why isn’t the first book translated first? The Redbreast is his third book and Borkmann’s Point was Nesser’s second book. My husband knows to purchase the first book if there is a series. So, in this book when there are allusions to Detective Harry Hole’s past, we don’t have anything to “stick” that to. I did have a couple of false starts with this book, mainly because I was so busy doing other things I didn’t take time to sit and read. This is the blurb for this book: “Detective Harry Hole embarrassed the force, and for his sins he’s been reassigned to mundane surveillance tasks. But while monitoring neo-Nazi activities in Oslo, Hole is inadvertently drawn into a mystery with deep roots in Norway’s dark past, when members of the government willingly collaborated with Nazi Germany. More the sixty years later, this black mark won’t wash away–and disgraced old soldiers who once survived a brutal Russian winter are being murdered, one by one. Now, with only a stained and guilty conscience to guide him, an angry, alcoholic, error-prone policeman must make his way safely past the traps and mirrors of a twisted criminal mind. For a conspiracy is taking rapid and hideous shape around Hole…and Norway’s darkest hour may be still to come.”

I still think I missed out on important character development by not reading the first in the series for both Borkmann’s Point and The Redbreast, but that’s just me. It really didn’t detract from the storyline in both books. I had mentioned to someone that this was my summer of Scandinavian authors. Also, on the Mac I cannot figure out how to make the Scandinavian characters to type the authors names properly.Read and enjoy!