Mid-month Musings

It seems only a few hours ago that I was thinking about writing a post about what’s coming up for me in November and suddenly here we are a fortnight later and I’m only sitting down to type now. Time flies when you’re having fun, apparently.

My reading has been going well and several reviews will follow, but there were some thoughts that I wanted to include here.

I finished A Night in the Lonesome October on Halloween as is meant to be. I read a chapter a day which was great fun, apart from the constant temptation to keep going to the end. I love this story so much and can see it being an annual event from now on.

I also read a couple of non-fiction books, both in the true crime (?) or at least the more general justice system arena.

The first was Perversion of Justice by Julie K Brown, which captures the work she did for the Miami Herald in exposing Jeffrey Epstein’s horrendous deeds and especially the at best dubious and at worst downright corrupt deal that was struck with prosecutors in 2008. An excellent depiction of how an investigative journalist works, but the subject matter, though sensitively handled, requires a brain cleanse.

I looked at pictures of kittens for several days afterwards.

Janet Malcolm’s Iphigenia in Forest Hills is the story of a murder trial told in a very detached manner with not much interest in the crime itself or the guilt or innocence of the accused, but more on the judge wanting to get the case over quickly so he can go on holiday, and a dodgy advocate who seemed to think his role was not to advance the interests of the child he represented but to express his personal views. It’s an odd book and although it held my interest for its (short) length, I wasn’t sure what the point of it all was. I know she’s a controversial figure in the world of journalism and I’m not sure if I’ll pick up any of her other works.

In other news….

I’ve had my Covid booster jag (that’s Scottish for injection btw) as well as my annual flu vaccine so peace of mind has increased after a couple of occasions where I was discomfited by the number of people not wearing masks.

The rest of this month will be very quiet but I have quite a few things to post about so watch this space. Yes, I know I say that a lot but I mean it this time. I do. Really.

Stay safe!