I hadn't planned on reading another Brother Cadfael murder mystery quite so soon but I was sick with the flu or something else that much nastier than your basic cold this week and needed an easy read. I tried to read Stephen King's The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon because I thought, hey, Stephen King is a nice light snack. Well, it was light - ON PLOT AND ATMOSPHERE, which is all the man has going for him - and so halfway through I kicked that shit to the curb and went with Old Reliable, Ellis Peters.
In my laying in for the flu (I actually had to close the store on Wednesday and on Thursday someone else worked) I completed the sixth in the Brother Cadfael series of medieval murder mysteries, The Virgin in the Ice. As always, any Cadfael story satisfies. And, shockingly, Peters presents her first female murder victim - and more shockingly - she was raped! Peters maintains her cozy medieval world even as she shows more with each book how its borders are fraying and vulnerable and its inhabitants the playthings of larger and dangerous, if not malevolent, forces - all mostly resulting from the chaos brought on by King Stephen's and the Empress Maud's continuing civil war over the crown.
I am still a little under the weather but back at work as necessity demands. I don't have much to say about this book. It was easy and enjoyable, just as I required it to be. What do you like to read when you're under the weather and stuck in bed? My brother will probably show off and email to tell me he likes to read Finnegans Wake or Herodotus when he's feverish. Boo.
5 comments:
I have the unfortunate curse of not having the ability to read while I am sick:( Hope you are all better soon!
Actually, my preferred reading material when I'm under the weather is contemporary cosmological theory. It required no emotional investment unless you are a solipsist (admittedly I do believe that the Universe exists to irritate me) and it is usually stranger than science fiction.
Usually I just lay on the couch with the TV on (preferably P&P--the Colin Firth version) and drift in and out of sleep when I'm that sick. Once I read a Gaelen Foley book with a 100+ deg. fever, but I have very little recollection of it.
Hope you feel better soon!
Boon Psmith: Yikes, that is a curse!!!! I can only hope you have an iron-clad immune system and therefore never get sick.
Dr. K: You are such a braggart. And hilariously clever. Love you!
heidenkind: Mmm, Colin Firth. There are a few reading experiences I've lost to fever as well. Frustrating!
Kailana: Ah, thanks! I think I'm okay now. But I'd still like some days off for laying about. Oh well - I can probably hang on until Xmas.
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