READING

I read voraciously. I am in a weekly mystery book group. And I read lots of other books. Sometimes I like the group books and sometimes I don't. And the same for my outside reading.

Janet R our book group moderator receives 100s and 100s of books from publishers. We get to read them and if they are good we report back to her and the group. And we return the good books for her to read.

I picked up one a couple of weeks ago. Honestly Dearest, You're Dead by Jack Fredrickson. He isn't an author I was familiar with. And from the title and the cover I thought Chick Lit or a vampire story. Wrong. I really, really liked this book. The writing is sometimes humorous, very descriptive, and lots of plot turns. Old ladies watching porn, bad dressers, teen love and fights with city hall. All this and murder. The writing is more dark than humorous, but the humor is very helpful to relieve the tense parts. Sometimes I did need a score card for all the players, but I kept up.

I am not sure if quoting from the book is legal, but I am going to do it. The main character has a thing about Wal-Mart and Oreos. It runs through the whole book. And almost makes sense to me.

"I have a theory that, when the apocalypse comes, everyone will be living inside Wal-Marts and won't learn that the outside world has ended for at least a generation or two, and then only because the Oreos run out. For by then , the last of the cities and towns will have long since crumbled away, obsolete as buffalo skins, as dozens of generations will have been born, lived entire live, died and been recycled into puppy food inside huge, windowless Wal-Domes."

This continues on for a page and a half. Loved it. The book is worth reading just for pages 26 and 27, The Wal-Mart Essay.