Gone Fishin’ (so to speak . . . )

April 30 ,2006 – Well I haven’t made a worthy post the entire month of April. This is because I went on vacation the first part of April for the first time in several years, packing up the kids and departing for a week at a quiet condo by the water in North Carolina, and in doing so gave myself permission to read books simply for pleasure. This is sort of like walking into a penny candy store with a dollar to spend. (This is an experience I actually had in my lifetime, but a long, long time ago.)

So this is what I read in the month of April that has absolutely nothing to do with feeding my business acumen, but a lot to do with feeding my soul. I felt that I needed to make an accounting of myself.

The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester. Fabulous book, I just loved it!

The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey by Candice Millard. A gripping narrative, I loved it.

The Sixth Lamentation by William Brodrick. A real page turner. I read it in a single day. Great book.

The Life of Pi by Yann Martel. Fascinating book. I believed every word of it.

An Unfinished Marriage by Joan Anderson. Picked it up second hand, no explanation as to why, but I loved the book. It’s a sequel to her first book entitled A Year by the Sea which I have not read. I think it’s very thought provoking no matter what your marital status.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson. You have to be in the right frame of mind for Hunter, and I was. Definitely puts life in a very different perspective.

The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown. The kids and I listened to the unabridged audio book on the way down and on the way back from NC. Very exciting plot and full of fascinating information. I can see why it was a bestseller.

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. I love this writer and have read all of her other books, but started this one years ago and put it down. The beginning is depressing, but it’s worth pushing through. The story draws you in and the amount of detail about the Congo is amazing. That type of detail regarding nature is what I loved about Prodigal Summer.

Three Sisters in Black: The Bizarre Case of the Bathtub Tragedy by Norman Zierold. This book was published in 1968, the year I started first grade at Christiansburg Primary School. Part of the story takes place in Christiansburg, VA, and one of the sisters and one of their victims, a nephew, is buried there. It was an urban legend that I grew up with and I was glad to find this out of print first edition. It’s just as fascinating now as I remember it being back when I read it at age 10. Truth is very much stranger than fiction and this is a great true story.

Done. I hope I have properly acquitted myself for being so lax in posting book reviews to this blog. I will buckle down now and get back to business (in a manner of speaking) by starting at the top of a tall stack of business books that have been accumulating while I ran amok literarily in the month of April. I recommit myself to the mission of the blog in earnest now . . .