i need more reading time.
One year ago: I go on a massive rant about pride in ignorance.
Two years ago: I play Rage! (Anyone know where I can get a Rage deck?)
Three years ago: I list the journals I read.
Four years ago: I prepare to drink a lot before my birthday.
Today's news question:What major event in US history happened 26 years ago today?
(Don't send me your answers. This is just a little way to expand your horizons. Honest.)
I'll give you a hint on today's news question: I always mention this event as happening the day before my birthday.
Hint over.
I got a call from the library today that I had a book waiting for me, which was odd because the last time I checked the LA Library's website there were no books in transit for me. (I don't browse at the library; I search for books on the website and put in a hold for them, then pick them up at the local branch.)
Ta da! The latest book from Harlan Coben, Darkest Fear, had arrived! So once Dora was at the house with Pookie, I went and picked up the book. Then I headed over to Starbucks -- no frappucinos, thank you, but they do have more comfortable facilities for working; the place is just lousy with laptops -- and said to myself, I will read a few pages, then I will work.
285 pages and two hours later...
I start reading Coben, I can't stop. I have totally wasted today's writing time, but I don't care: it's a good book. It's a really good book. At one point I mentally shook myself and said, "Diane, if you start crying out loud I will fucking kill you." I managed to refrain. But I thought about bursting into tears. And I don't cry at books.
(The writing's a little odd: he uses the authorial voice all over the place. Example: "Several months ago, a friend's death had sent Myron into a tailspin, causing him to--and we're using complex psychiatric jargon here--wig out." It's a novel written in third-person limited, from Myron's point of view, so who's this "we"? It's at if Coben is saying, See, I am writing a book, and you are reading one. How are you enjoying the fictive dream? But he makes it work. Trust me.)
I'll tell you everything the book jacket does: Myron Bolitar gets a call from an ex-girlfriend telling him her son needs a bone marrow transplant and the donor they found disappeared. Oh, and by the way: her son? Is actually Myron's. Surprise!
Yes, folks, it's the child-in-jeopardy plot, and Coben does it right. Not only do you learn something -- I'd always wondered how bone marrow transplants worked -- but it's well-plotted, funny, tense, and gripping. It's mostly about fathers and sons, although it's cloaked behind some Very Bad Doings. It's excellent.
One of the blurbs on the back is from Michael Connelly: "The world needs to discover Harlan Coben. He's smart, he's funny, and he has something to say." That about sums it up.
Not many books make me want to call the National Marrow Donor Program, I assure you.
(Jesus, there's only one marrow center for Los Angeles?)
The answer to yesterday's question: American troops are being sent to Nigeria to train and equip West African battalions that will then be dispatched to Sierra Leone to bolster beleaguered government troops and United Nations peacekeepers there.
Heard what's going down in Sierra Leone lately? It's bad. Really, really bad. I sure wouldn't want to be one of the military men going in.
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Copyright 2000 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@nobody-knows-anything.com