First off, I reread the Da Vinci Code but this time it was The Da Vinci Code, Special Illustrated Edition by Dan Brown. I didn’t really want to reread it but the husband wanted to read it to see what all the fuss was about. I try to encourage him any time he discusses wanting to read something because he doesn’t read for fun and can’t understand why I do. But, he didn’t read it. I started out reading it like a bedtime story to him. He’s into conspiracy theories so I thought he’d like it. In the first chapter he kept interrupting me to ask, “So, this is a story?” “Why is it a story?” “You mean it isn’t real?” “If this is a story why is there controversy?” I tried to explain the power of literature to express ideas and theories and how just voicing those ideas can upset some people. He’d stare at me for a second and then start the line of questioning all over again. I guess we’ll be waiting for the movie.

I also read Crushing Crystal by Evan Marshall. This book is part of a series. I don’t see how it lasted long enough to have a series. I hated this main character. She is a fussy busybody who runs around trying to solve murders. All the people she thinks are bad guys tell her that she is being a fussy busybody who ought to mind her own business. I found myself cheering for them as they told her off. She couldn’t seem to understand why people didn’t give her access to private information like school and medical records just because she asked. She took that as signs of guilt. Skip this one.

For the library book club this month I had to read The Evidence Against Her by Robb Forman Dew. The moral of the story was that history is made up of people repeating whatever they want to believe – even if it is totally untrue. It is the story of three generations of terribly boring people in a town in Ohio in the late 1800s through World War II.

My books on tape this week included Africans in America – America’s Journey Through Slavery. I’m sort of ashamed to say that I couldn’t get past the first tape. The subject matter was interesting, especially the contrasts in the lives of Africans before slavery became the law of the south and after. But, the narrators obviously feel that their subject is very serious so they must talk stridently to make their point. This is the most over-acted narration I’ve ever heard. It was so distracting that I couldn’t focus on the information. I think I’d get much more out of the book.

I did enjoy Barbara Bush: A Memoir. It was written in 1994 so it is a bit out of date but it was funny in places. She has had an interesting life. No dirt in the book but interesting.

All in all not a good reading week. I’m off to the library in search of something better.