I started reading a highly acclaimed novel before Christmas, called Blackstrap Hawco. It’s reported to be an epic masterwork about Newfoundland’s working class. For whatever reason, this book has not been drawing me in. I leave it alone for days at a time, pick it up, read a few pages, forget them, pick it up again, read a few pages, and so on. It may just not be the right time and place for me to read this one.

Today, I decided the best thing to do would be to put it down and read another book or two or three and then come back to it afresh somewhere down the line. I have two books on deck. I haven’t decided which to pick up first. There is The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry….”an unlikely detective, armed only with an umbrella and a singular handbook, must untangle a string of crimes committed in and through people’s dreams”. The other is Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell…”Dr. Peter Brown is an intern at Manhattan’s worst hospital. He has a talent for medicine, a shift from hell and a past he’d prefer to keep hidden.”

I’ll keep you posted….