I’ve made a supreme effort in the last week and a bit to do more reading. It’s not that I don’t love books and reading it’s just that there are never enough hours in the day. Please don’t lecture me about how if I spent less time at the computer reading everyone’s blogs then I would have ample time for books. I don’t want to live in isolation. I enjoy being part of a community. When was at school it was a community that passed around absolutely anything by John Wyndham. Now I can see why I enjoyed his science fiction so much. Of course the central theme of each work was something strange and amazing but the setting and the people were so normal. Take out plants that can walk, children that can control your mind or a beauty product that can make you live for ever and the books are just about people living together and getting on with life.
I don’t enjoy adventure stories or films or rather I don’t unless how the protagonists go about getting through the adventure is an integral part of the novel/film.
So back to today’s reading, Drowning Ruth by Christina Schwarz. I heard this mentioned on at least one blog months or maybe even a year or so ago. With my name in the two-word title it was inevitable that I should take a look at it sometime.It sounds as though it will be a murder mystery but the simple storyline of one sister returning home, and moving in with her younger sister who never left, promises plenty of the quotidian domesticity that I love.
I am not quite at the halfway mark (page 105 of 276 pages) and the yarn is beginning to untangle but never at a pace too racey for my homely self. I have to get myself back into the book as I received my first ever uncorrected proof and I felt obliged to read that immediately. Luckily I had halted at a natural break in the narrative. So I could waffle on here for a few sentences / paragraphs /pages … or I could go away and READ!
C r a f t y P e o p l e ---- confessions of a lapsed reader 
Sunday, February 3, 2008 at 12:31
Drowning Ruth tested my patience, but there is a twist in the book that made it worth my time. I hope you enjoy it – or at least feel glad that you read it!
=) Jill
http://mrstreme.livejournal.com
Sunday, February 3, 2008 at 12:44
I have According to Ruth by Jane Feaver on my shelves and I think of you every time I see the title, now I really should read it!
Sunday, February 3, 2008 at 16:52
‘Drowning Ruth’ was a book that really split one of my f2f groups but at the end I think we were all glad that we’d read it. Do let us know what you feel at the end.
Monday, February 4, 2008 at 14:10
Nice to be back in a reading frenzy :-) Maybe you’ll even fly back to the dovecote?! We’d love to have you back.
Drowning Ruth sounds interesting – as a book, rather than a propisition, you understand – and how much did the title influence you buying it?!!
Thursday, February 7, 2008 at 18:07
I see nothing wrong with reading online material and don’t necessarily think books are on a superior plane. As long as people are reading, it’s all good! :)
here via Sunday Salon