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Constant Reader

 I find Thanksgiving stressful and exhausting, so it's important to me to have books that will immediately lift me from my surroundings and take me to another world. The books should also be short because, if there is ever a time for super-ambitious, long-march reading, then Thanksgiving is not that time.


This year, I chose Laurie Colwin's last novel, "A Big Storm Knocked It Over." Colwin was beloved during her career, but she died young, in the early 1990s. She seems to specialize in perceptive stories about anxious New Yorkers, in which little or nothing actually happens. But she, Colwin, is smart and writes well:


Sven was compact and well-made, like a good canoe. He had short-cropped silver hair and light, cold-blue eyes. His clothes were very beautiful and expensive. It was said that he had only two real interests in the world, besides running the art department of a publishing house: poker and fucking.....It was said that the art departments of major NYC publishing companies were littered with his victims. When once confronted with this reputation by Jane Louise, Sven said: "I don't discriminate against editorial...."


Punchy, slightly scandalous. This was fun to read.


The other book I charged my way through was "The Concrete Blonde," a procedural by Michael Connelly. In this one, Detective Bosch murders a man he believes to be a serial killer, "the Dollmaker." (The name refers to the killer's habit of painting his victims, like dolls--but Bosch doesn't like the name, because it dehumanizes the victims. This is the kind of sharp insight you can expect from Connelly.)


Is is possible the Dollmaker is actually still alive? A new victim surfaces, a porn star named "Magna Cum Loudly," a major player in a recent film entitled "Whore of the Roses." Now the shit hits the fan. Bosch may have murdered an innocent man.


Connelly's imagination is seemingly boundless, and he writes like an angel. I'm so glad I borrowed "Concrete Blonde" for this long weekend.

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