Tried, But Failed

My recent reading experiences seem to be all about Not Finishing. I am OK with that. I started reading Let The Great World Spin by Colm McCann. I could tell after reading about a tenth of it that it was beautifully written and excrutiatingly sad. I decided that I had read enough to get the experience I needed from it. I don't want to sound flightly, but I just couldn't deal with another sad book, even if the payoff was a beautifully written story.

I also gave up on the first Kate Morton (The Shifting Fog) after quite a solid attempt of about 130 pages. It pleases me to know that her writing has improved with leaps and bounds in each of her books, but that doesn't mean I want to suffer through attempt number one. It irritated the hell out of me, I think because there was a LOT of first person narrative and it was bad and unconvincing and trite.

The Nancy Mitford I mentioned in my last post, Don't Tell Alfred was all I hope it would be; a confection of a book. Reading it was like drinking a beautifully fragrant cup of tea. Mitford's writing reminds me of my Grandmother which adds to my enjoyment. I don't have a single negative thing to say about this book so I'll stop now to prevent gushing of embarrassing proportions.