Holy July, Batman!

So time is definitely not on my side.  I am quickly trying to get everything packed for my move to North Carolina, but I have still found time to squeeze in some necessary reading.  I finished Bangkok 8, loved it, and I am also part of the way through Bangkok Tattoo.  The odd mix of the sex industry, corruption, murder, and ultimately, Buddhism is strangely compelling and teaching me a lot about Thai culture.  I am also pushing through The Historian.  This book, about Dracula, no less is not as compelling as the other books I have read recently, but is teaching me a lot about the Balkans and the tumultuous history between the region and their Ottoman oppressors, but it is definitely not for those who like short novels.  Finally, thanks to an awesome gift, I am also reading my way through the history and culture of North Carolina.

So my rapid reading schedule continues

Apparently, I have too much time on my hands.  So Venetian Betrayal, alright.  The cost of reading all of these historical thrillers though is wondering what is true and what is false.  Alexander the Great, interesting and heroic gay icon, good to know.  Also, maybe I need to read the Iliad more closely, but I think I was sleeping through the whole mixing of Achilles and Patroclus ashes. Why does reading Homer sound so much better when someone else is summarizing for you?  On an semi-unrelated side note, it reminds me of when I read the Clive Cussler’s Trojan Odyssey and discovered there is this whole regenade theory that the Iliad and the siege of Troy actually took place in England.  It is all laid out in this book, Where Troy Once Stood, by Iman Jacob Wilkens.  The book was out of print for a while, but I need to track it down and read it.

Moving on.  The list of books I am plowing through now.  7th Heaven, James Patterson, delicious Women’s Murder Club goodness.  Though I really don’t see the appeal of the TV show.  Bleeding Kansas, a non-VI Warshawski Sara Paretsky novel, and this weird book I saw people reading at the airport by Thomas Greanias, Raising Atlantis.   That is all.