Yep, I’m lazy and combining posts today…
…from Thanksgiving to my “regularly scheduled” (ahem, if you’ve been here a while, it’s very “irregularly scheduled”) posts of Midweek Review and Flashback Friday and Library Loot (which I toss in every once in a while).
A hodge-podge if you will, sort of like a plate on Thanksgiving, with a little bit of this and that thrown on the plate.
For what am I least grateful this week?
So in my last Library Loot post I mentioned The Professional by Robert B. Parker, and I’m going to mention it again this time around as, again combining posts here, one of the things for which I’m least grateful this week.
Each Monday, a small group of ladies participate in the meme Sleeping with Bread, 
started by Mary-Lue and based off the book by the same name and on the Friday before that, I post something I call Flashback Friday (today on Saturday) as part of that. The meme is based on the Examen as practiced by St. Ignatius of Loyola.
I enjoyed Spenser novels when I was a teenager and in college, but I think Parker has taken the character as far as he can go and it is time for him to retire the legendary hard-boiled detective. It’s the same way I feel about Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch character. It’s time for him to retire too. I won’t belabor the point, because unfortunately neither one is worth discussing further, even though I have enjoyed both authors’ characters in the past.
Another book and series for which I’m least grateful this week is Lynda La Plante DCI Anna Travis series. Earlier this week, against my better judgment I picked up the third in the series, Clean Cut, and after only about 20 pages into it, I decided to quit. Why? La Plante wrote the acclaimed British series Prime Suspect, which I loved. However, I don’t think the brilliance carries over here, because I feel like I’m reading a screenplay. The stories here feel like just a long string of “and thens.” And then Anna did this…and then Anna did that…and then Anna…blah blah blah. I think actually I’ve been spoiled by reading Agatha Christie mysteries too, where Christie has her plot so meticulously planned, and I don’t get the same feeling from La Plante.
For what am I most grateful this week?
Classics, especially the aforementioned Agatha Christie, of whose books I picked up two from the library this past week: Poirot Loses A Client (aka Dumb Witness) and Death on the Nile. I am reading both as part of the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge (click on badge to sign up yourself for the challenge).
For links to the reviews of the first 20 Agatha Christie mysteries I’ve read so far this year as part of the challenge, see my Challenges page.
I also picked up Ovid’s Metamorphoses from the library, for another challenge in which I’m participating, the Really Old Classics Challenge (again click on button, this time to go to challenge’s main page, where you can sign up if you’re so inclined). I had taken this book out of the library a few months ago with the intention of reading it, but didn’t get to it.
All three of these books also fit with yet a third challenge (yes, I need to add these to my challenges page, one thing at a time): Blogger Unplugged, hosted by Jen of Devourer of Books and Candace of Beth Fish Reads. They have no sign-up page, but the challenge here is to unplug from Facebook, from Twitter, from your blog, from your computer essentially, especially during the holidays to fight blogger burnout and catch up on reading and with family and friends (Real Life, in other words). I’m all for that.
Now if only I can catch up with the 79 blog posts in my Google Reader this afternoon (rolling eyes) and figure out which running backs to play this week on my fantasy football team (member of the “vaunted” Humor Bloggers Fantasy Football League), I’ll be golden.
This post also can be found on my main blog, an unfinished person (in an unfinished universe).
