Another year older

July 11, 2011

Wee reader graciously allowed me to sleep till about 6 this morning (he’s been edging his way up from 5am, surprising us all – and making me freak out a little! – last Wednesday when he decided he’d sleep in until 720am, and unfortunately returning to his regular schedule of 5am the next morning), perhaps his own way of saying happy birthday. For yes, it is July the 11th, and on this day, 32 years ago (had to count back just to make sure it’s right), I was born. And here I am today, a parent. How weird that is. And as of yesterday, we have become an SUV family (figured it would be easier with a second car now with the little one). Saturday saw our friends coming over for a BBQ feast with edamame and papadums to start, and on the grill, rib-eyes, sausages, asparagus, portobello mushrooms, corn and garlic bread, and to finish, two cakes! (a chocolate mousse-y thing and an orange chocolate cake). I still feel full (ok, maybe that’s because I started my day with leftover birthday cake for breakfast)! The husband got me a Kinect as well as two games – one a fitness type one and Dance Central! Exercise and me don’t see eye to eye (I started the Couch to 5k podcast a couple of weeks ago, and erm, I’m still on the couch), so might as well make it more fun!

Ok, back to bookishness. Valerie Martin’s Italian Fever was not what I expected. I thought it was something a little ghostly, a little gothic perhaps. And there was a splash of that but just a splash. Instead of a mystery-story of a dead writer haunting a Tuscan villa, which it kind of started with, it turned into a romantic escapade with an Italian in Rome. Although I guess I preferred that it turned out that way.

Lucy Stark works for DV, a hack writer but a very successful one at that. She’s sent to Italy to settle DV’s affairs after he falls into a well and dies. The Cini family, his landlords, are rather weird and Lucy immediately dislikes them, especially the heir Antonio. However, she does get close to Massimo, sent by the publisher’s Italian office to aid her, and takes off with him to Rome for a romantic rendezvous. Then there’s also that mystery of painter Catherine Bultman, DV’s lover, who seems to have disappeared.

By the end of the book, I was rather fond of Lucy, I guess in the way one would be fond of an eccentric grandaunt, the kind with spidery writing and bright red spectacles. Lucy’s rather quirky – when first meeting Massimo, who tells her that her family has been in Rome for a thousand years”, she asks: “Any popes?”. She becomes surprisingly spontaneous, although one could put that down to the actual physical fever (the kind with sweats and all).

I’m currently reading Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption and enjoying every page of it. I suppose ‘enjoy’ is not exactly the right word. Perhaps ‘amazed’ would be better, for every night in bed I’m reading bits of it to the husband. And he’s equally amazed. And also, Edwidge Danticat’s* Breath, Eyes, Memory. Definitely enjoying it so far, but perhaps not as much as Unbroken, since I keep picking that up instead!

What are you reading this week?

*I just love her name!

Written by olduvai Posted in Books, Currently Reading, E-books, Reading, review Tagged with books, reading, Valerie Martin