Junk Food versus Gourmet

I can't believe it's almost the end of the year (except for maybe the horrifically cold temperatures and howling winds) and I have to acknowledge the failure of the 2010 theme of picaresque novels and work my brain to find something more fruitful for next year. In the meantime, I have been reading a rag-tag assortment of books. When in doubt, or in a lusty mood, a revert to J. D. Robb and her "In Death" series. The latest is Indulgence in Death which I just now finished. Not one of her better ones, terribly formulaic, making its predictability not comforting but contrived. This series is set in the not too distant future in NYC after a class war. Yet social strata survive and villains abound. Normally, I adore the release Eve Dallas and Rourke find in each other and the fleshing out of the minor characters, Eve's friends on and off the force, but they seemed very superficial in this installment. The bad guys are over-indulged inherited-it-all thrill seekers and the concluding chapters are now where near as dangerous as other installments. Had I time enough and audience, it would be a scholarly challenge to decode Robb's stock format with that of Dick Francis.

But Robb attracts me like potato chips. I swear off them several times a month, only to succumb when I find a new bag in the cupboard.

What has proven again to be an unexpected delight is to discover the intrigue, wonder, and enjoyment of those books my Emily sent me for my birthday. As I opened another one and found another charming note from her, I must conclude that she has a much better sense for good contemporary literature than my book club members do. I loved Zafon and now have discovered Seldon Edward's The Little Book. Where is the buzz on this book? Here is a well-educated author who spent decades researching and polishing his manuscript to turn it into an engaging novel of time traveling to Vienna in 1897.

Unlike the book club's November selection, A Short History of Women, here is a book where both sexes are strong, loving and supporting each other in a successive generations of family and friends. Place and time are integral. Supporting characters play six degrees of separation with well known figures -- Mahler, Freud, WWII French resistance and 19th Century Boston Brahmins -- all intermingling. Actually, I think this is the first time travel book I've read, but to call it that is to do it injustice. Edwards counterpoints Freud's theories against the generational tensions between fathers and sons and contradicts his premises with strong female heroines.

The main characters are unforgettable: Weezie, Wheeler, Dilly and the Haze. When the author admits in his afterword that he developed them over decades of polishing, the reader believes him since all are so multi-dimensional and fraught with human concerns.

As much as I liked Zafon's Barcelona, Edwards' Vienna is more familiar to me. My visit was in 1976, an Olympic year and a time when early OPEC was holding its first meetings. I toured St Stephens, the Imperial Gardens, ate my schlagg and then returned to my hotel to watch international sports with young Arabs. Vienna was surreal even then.

There are still two Emily books next to my bed and the ever present daunting tome of Drood. Holiday busywork will impede my efforts to close 2010 with a flurry of wintertime reading and a new assignment at work has expressed itself as "cut back on the blog and write what we need." But The Little Book is a solid "A" and one that I will pass along to my Slackers.