latest book read, books enjoyed and some flat ones

After suffering from BADD (Book Attention Deficit Disorder)I have finally finished a book! For the past year I have had a hard time actually finishing a book. I have over 60 books that I have bought in the last year, and I have started about 30 of them, lost interest in some, misplaced a few and finished about 10. Ten in about a year. I used to read at least two books a week. I have bought, and passed around enough books to stock a used book store.

I'm not sure what to blame this Book Attention Deficit Disorder on (yes I know it's not a valid sydrome - but it's mine and I'm sure it should be a real syndrome) .

Possibilites for why I have developed BADD

1. Three new grandchildren within two years; a beautiful very intelligent and spirited granddaughter who at the age of 22 mos has quite a sense of humor, keeps me on the run and was my first grandchild; a beautiful, sweet baby boy that was born with a birth defect (relatively minor compared to what could have been) that will involve surgeries throughout his childhood (he has already had one of them and he is only eight months old) who is so sweet and full of smiles for his grandmother; and a oneyear old step grandson who I like to just claim as a granchild. He has just came into my life three months ago. He is full of laughter and a lot of fun to be around
2. A slightly stressful end of one job, and a very stressful beginning to another job - general suck assness. If it weren't for the fact that I really enjoy children and need to actually pay rent and eat, I would have quit.
3. I suffer from chronic pain, and sometimes have difficulty holding a book - but I'll hold one as long as I can. I'd rather read a book than listen to audio books. I like to imagine the voices of the characters. Have you ever read a book that was enjoyable, had an idea of what a character sounded like (the wolf in Tenth Kingdom, the Hungry, dangerous wolf) then watched the movie and had to listen to the actor/or director's intrepretation of the character (i.e. whiny unpleasant wussy voice of the wolf in The Tenth Kingdom? Though the movie was pretty good, I was very put off by the movie wolf, when the book wolf was kinda cool. Sad for me.)
4. I take a lot of medicine, one of them a newer drug for nerve pain; I worry that it might affect my memory at some point. Don't really want to travel down that worry road, then I'll start worrying about brain damage via medication, or onset of Alzheimer's (that one is scary for me) anytime I can't think of a name of a person. I misplace a lot of books in the middle of reading them. Are they in my car? under my bed? My granddaughter's toy box? (she likes to pretend she is reading my books), did I loan any out and forget?
5. Recently moved from a cramped apartment to an actual house (hallelujiah) and have a lot of my books still in boxes.

Those are probably enough reasons to develop Book Attention Deficit Disorder, can't think of any other reasons at the moment (oh my god, there's that memory problem again!). At any rate I am very pleased that I have finished a book, started another one and am almost finished with that one. Some of the memorable books for 2008 for me were written by Lilith Saintcrow, Patricia Briggs and Terry Pratchett. The books that I finished (the ones I remember anyway) and really Enjoyed are

• Working for the Devil (Lilith Saintcrow) five books in that series
• Dead Man Rising (")
• Blood Bound (Patricia Briggs) three book series so far, more to come
• Iron Kissed (")
• Nation (Terry Pratchett)
• Making Money (")
• You Suck (Christopher Moore)
• Stormborn (Richelle Mead)
• Magic to the Bone (Devon Monk)

Some of the less memorable books lately (within the last two years)

• Incubus Dreams, Danse Macabre, The Harlequin, etc. by Laurell K Hamilton (hey I loved her first few books, enjoyed the middle few, but the last few? What? Why? - hey what happened? It went from horror, to just ... um.... yeah.... She has a way with words, used to have a good story , yeah okay hope it gets better.
• the Mona Lisa books by Sunny. Kind of ...um.... yeah.... sappy. A chip off the recent LKH block of ....um....yeah whatever. Okay, but not really enjoying the insecure-I- must- protect-all-the-supernaturally-strong-men-around-me-even-though-I'm-physically-weaker-and-human-just-found-out-I'm-only-part-human-type of heroine. Even though Sunny can be a good writer, and has interesting ideas with bits of humor thrown in, the dialogue between her characters are kind of lame, making them appear (to me anyway), as a little - stupid. (Hey -I know I can't do better than that - I'm a reader - not a writer, no real imagination here...)
• Succubus Blues by Richelle Mead. I was ready for some kick as Succubus demon action...good concept, but I would rather my succubus demon be less angsty, or whiny and guilt-ridden. Wasn't horrible, but really wasn't driven to buy the sequel, though I liked her other book (Stormborn), though I almost didn't buy it based on the style of Succubus Blues.
• Nightwalker (Jocelyn Drake) Couldn't finish it. Not sure why. I looked forward to it for a while (I surf the web for new authors to read), but just lost interest. I will actually try to read it again though.....as soon as I find it...where did I put it?...

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the above are horrible writers, they just didn't hold my interest either at the time, or anymore. Or in the case of LKH, she lost me. I still think she's a good writer, or could be, but ...that's a whole other post. Soon. I don't really want to post about books that straight up suck for me.

Just finishing up (two chapters to go - but here I am typing away, or is it keyboarding away?) Demon Bound by Meljean Brook. Great book. MelJean Brook has written (I think) four novels and one or two short stories. I've read her other three novels and they are all exceptional. She writes a good story, no lame dialogue ( I hate lame dialogue between characters that are supposed to be intelligent and ubertough - ruins a book for me everytime)

The book I just finished is Magic to the Bone by Devon Monk. It's set in Oregon in an alternate world, where magic has recently been discovered. The general populace actually believes that magic has in fact only recently developed or appeared. In this setting, using magic costs the user a price in body pain or memory loss. Miss Monk has developed a world where corporations are making money with magic and all the byproducts of magic use. "Offloading" where users don't have to pay a personal price , storage of magic, rights to magic, blackmarket magic uses, etc. Devon Monk has brought up a lot of interesting concepts. The book has suspense, murder, romance (nothing too sappy though - tired of sappy romance, probably a symptom of my encroaching aging), twists and turns. The heroine (Allie Beckstrom) doesn't have it easy, suffers from memory loss when she's not careful with her magic offloads, and doesn't have a special happily ever after. I really enjoyed this book a lot. I'm hoping Devon Monk is writing sequels to this....

I just searched the web for Devon Monk, because of course I haven't before this. The only site I could find that was close to a homepage for her was the Penguin book co... thing. She apparently has written many short stories, published in many SF magazines. This is the only novel I could find by her.

So Miss (actually she's a Mrs) Devon Monk, here's hoping that you write another Allison Beckstrom novel. Please. I would buy the next book by you, just seeing your name on the cover.