It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading! is my comfortable, go-to, coffee-klatsch meme for when I want to connect about books but can't gather the brain cells for more than a list. It's so nice just to hang out with the other readers on Monday and talk about what we are reading! All this is courtesy of Sheila at Book Journey. She is Wonder Woman (check out her blog...you'll see what I mean).

So: this Monday was my first day back at work after being out with the plague since last Wednesday. No, it wasn't the Black Death but it kind of felt that way sometimes. Now when I look at my classroom I see an environment for a teeming mass of squirming viruses.

After starting the new year out with the amazing All the Pretty Horses (Cormac McCarthy) I was feeling like an immortal reader. There were no bad choices. I was all ready to read The Crossing, the second book in McCarthy's Border Trilogy, and suddenly this virus would not let me read McCarthy's sentences. McCarthy is a miraculous stylist: you will be reading along, and come to a period and suddenly go: "Hey, when was the last time I saw one of those?" You retrace your steps and find that the sentence you just read was half a page or more (no commas, by the way). Of course McCarthy's next sentence will contain just five words. Anyway, this wasn't working for my plague-ridden brain. I picked up/put down half a dozen books and then it hit me!

And I started reading this:

Brilliant! From Cormac McCarthy to Diana Gabaldon! What a leap!

When I was a bookseller customers used to rave about this series. Readers of all kinds: male, female, young, old. A male customer who also worked as a substitute teacher spent a good twenty minutes earnestly persuading me to please pick up this book.

Then a student literally put this book in my hand (in that same bookstore where I used to work). A lovely, sweet and smart girl (I'm absolutely positive she will be an English teacher or professor/novelist). So now I'm finally reading Outlander, and finding it every bit as entertaining and addictive as promised.

Also on my list for the next week or so:

Wanderers, a book of short stories by Edward Belfar. This one is for TLC Book Tours. I requested it because I love short stories, and always jump at the chance to review new collections.

The Tell by Hester Kaplan, also for TLC Book Tours

I'd like to get back to The Border Trilogy too, but I'm not sure that will happen this month.

Hope you are all staying healthy. I can't help thinking of that movie Contagion, which I have watched far, far too many times. It seems as though when we came back from Winter Break the viruses were just laying in wait....

It's Monday...what are you reading?