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That Wednesday reading meme
This is not actually what I'm reading right now, but I was in Barnes & Noble yesterday and happened to notice the latest (I assume the latest) of Lee Child's Jack Reacher books on a bargain table. As noted in a previous post, I stopped reading the series due to skepticism that Reacher could've survived being blown a thousand feet in the air by an explosion that reduced a 737 jet to unidentifiable slag (ACTUAL CANON, I AM MAKING NONE OF THIS UP). However, I was curious, so I flipped open to the cover flap to see what he's up to now.
The last book I read took place in South Dakota, and before getting blow (literally) sky-high, he was planning on traveling to Washington, DC to meet up with a female military investigator that he'd been communicating with via phone. That's basically where it ended, aside from him being presumed dead.
.... So apparently, he's still traveling to DC to meet Susan, and in this book he finally gets there. Based on the book list inside, it appears that this is the fourth book to come out since the last one I read. It took him four books to get from South Dakota to DC. No hurry, Reacher, take your time, I guess.
I can't help picturing the reunion scenario.
Reacher: Susan! It's me!
Susan: Who?
Reacher: Jack Reacher! We spoke on the phone for about a day and a half four years ago! Still hot for me? *takes off shirt*
Susan: ... I got married years ago. Sorry.
Reacher: *deflates*
Anyway.
What I'm actually reading is Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers. I've never read any of her books, but Gaudy Night is the one that tends to be mentioned by a lot of people as their favorite of hers (if not their favorite book ever, sometimes) so I decided that would be a good place to start. So far, I'm enjoying it a lot -- I'm about 200 pages in -- and not feeling too lost jumping into the middle of a series, though I'd gotten the impression from what vague spoilers I've picked up along the way that this is the first book in which Harriet appears, which is obviously not the case. However, it's lots of fun so far!
The last book I read took place in South Dakota, and before getting blow (literally) sky-high, he was planning on traveling to Washington, DC to meet up with a female military investigator that he'd been communicating with via phone. That's basically where it ended, aside from him being presumed dead.
.... So apparently, he's still traveling to DC to meet Susan, and in this book he finally gets there. Based on the book list inside, it appears that this is the fourth book to come out since the last one I read. It took him four books to get from South Dakota to DC. No hurry, Reacher, take your time, I guess.
I can't help picturing the reunion scenario.
Reacher: Susan! It's me!
Susan: Who?
Reacher: Jack Reacher! We spoke on the phone for about a day and a half four years ago! Still hot for me? *takes off shirt*
Susan: ... I got married years ago. Sorry.
Reacher: *deflates*
Anyway.
What I'm actually reading is Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers. I've never read any of her books, but Gaudy Night is the one that tends to be mentioned by a lot of people as their favorite of hers (if not their favorite book ever, sometimes) so I decided that would be a good place to start. So far, I'm enjoying it a lot -- I'm about 200 pages in -- and not feeling too lost jumping into the middle of a series, though I'd gotten the impression from what vague spoilers I've picked up along the way that this is the first book in which Harriet appears, which is obviously not the case. However, it's lots of fun so far!
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The three books that Harriet appears in are: Strong Poison, Have His Carcase, and Gaudy Night, so you're kind of starting at the end (although it definitely is the strongest of the three, I think.) And then there's Busman's Honeymoon but for some reason people never mention Busman's Honeymoon-- too much focus on the Peter/Harriet, not enough murder & detection? IDK.
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I also tried to read the series some time back starting with a Peter book and didn't like him, whereas I'm much preferring Harriet as a narrator, so there's that.
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Maybe you saw someone mention that Gaudy Night and Busman's Honeymoon are the two books that have the most Harriet POV in them? Strong Poison (iirc) is like 5% Harriet POV, & Have His Carcase has a dual POV for most of it, but Gaudy Night is the first time Sayers commits herself to Harriet's POV for the whole book, and it causes a shift in the whole focus of the universe, almost.
I think it's in Gaudy Night where Sayers gets all meta and has Harriet talking about how she can write really clever mysteries where the characters are mostly just author-puppets who do whatever the plot requires... or she can write books about real, 3D human people who just happen to be dealing with a murder. And that's basically Sayers talking about herself, which I always find funny. :D
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I can't think of a worse place to start than Gaudy Night, but I started with Busman's Honeymoon! Then I went back and read the Harriet books, then the just-building-up-Peter books, and finally the early ones.
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Yeah, I was going to say something about that! A lot of people snidely say that Harriet is Sayers' Mary Sue, but actually she's more like whatever the opposite of a Mary Sue is-- instead of a terrible character who ruins a good story by warping everyone's characterization and making the plot all about her, she's an excellent character who comes into a very good fictional universe and brings everything else up to *her* level. The plots get better, the writing gets better, everybody's characterization gets better...
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