Slow Reader's Report

Slow Reader’s Quarterly Reports

Titles in Red are books we have (or have had) in stock.

Titles in Bold Black indicate autographed books we have (or have had) in stock.

I began posting Slow Reader's Quarterly Reports on rec.arts.mystery and, subsequently, on the dorothyl list in January of 2000. These reports have been added from my reading list from earlier years. Book titles in color are or have been in stock. Those in red are unsigned copies, those in bold black are autographed. See the List of Residents for details.

October - December 1998

		The reason for these "quarterly" reports is that I just can’t keep up with the speed most of you read. It is not unlikely that I’ll only get one book done in a month and now that my "day" job has me doing less traveling, I don’t go through Books on Tape as often.

		*The Anubis Gates* from Tim Powers is a time travel story of a guy that is hired to travel with a group of people back to the earlier 1800’s to meet with a literary figure in one of his first public appearances. Brendon Doyle is brought along as an authority on the subject. He gets separated from the group and finds himself stuck back in time where sorcery and magic still exist. Not a bad time travel story, really. It set up rules and they were followed. But the time-travel aspects of this book is probably most attractive to those that are familiar with the setting and of old English Literature, for anyone else, it is best viewed as a “historic” novel.
		Tom "I'll keep a light on for 'ya" Bodett's Small Comforts consist of humorous essays on Boddett’s observation of life.
		*The Loop* from Nicholas Evans, like his first book, *The Horse Whisperer* is also set in ranch county. Wolves released by a government wildlife preservation program in Yellowstone have migrated to Montana and are threatening the rancher’s cattle. A big rancher’s son befriends and works with a woman brought in to monitor the wolf population. Luke, the 18 year old son of Buck Caldwell -- owner of the biggest ranch in the territory -- has always felt alienated from his father, has made a private study of the wolves and is soon introduced to Eleanor. She is a 29 year old wolf biologist who is brought in to find out if wolves are responsible for some cattle killings and soon becomes involve romantically with Luke. Interesting presentation. Both sides of the conflict are presented fairly, but not to the point of turning the book into a “lecture”.
		This is the fourth in the Four Past Midnight series of novellas, *Sun Dog*. This time a 15-year-old boy receives a Sun 660 Polaroid camera for his birthday, but finds that it takes the same picture; that of a dog in front of a white picket fence. Intrigued, he tries to find out what it is doing and discovers, by the help of an unscrupulous “odds and ends” dealer, that it is taking a slow movie -- the dog is actually coming to the “photographer”...
		A fire of suspicious Point of Origin at the home of a well-to-do horse breeder involves fatality is the subject of Patricia Cornwell's book. Kaye Scarpeta is called in by the ATF as part of a task force. Simultaneously, Carrie, the ex-lover of Lucy and psychotic killer escapes from a mental facility for the criminally insane.
		Available only as audio are Stephen W. Hawking's *The Cambridge Lectures. These lectures comprise the bulk of what eventually became his book, A Brief History of Time*; almost verbatim. Brief history had an introductory chapter, an added chapter on particle physics and an addendum on the lives of Albert Einstein, Sir Isaac Newton and Galileo.
		James Patterson's When the Wind Blows is a Sci-Fi/Techno-Thriller. A veterinarian and FBI agent are teamed up to investigate the doings of some “genetic research/experimentation” laboratories. This is quite a departure from what I've come to expect from Patterson. Very Koontz like. Not just in subject matter, but in ambiance.
		From Stephen King comes one of his better ones in recent years, *Bag of Bones*. A “best seller” writer is haunted by ghosts of his recently departed wife and some others in his history.

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