Category: 1001 Books

In light of the youngsters in the family coming down with a nasty cold, it’s going to be a bit of a lightweight post here today.

My latest book review was posted over at t’other blog yesterday.

It was a very old favourite of mine, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie.
You know the review is going to be positive from someone who had her entire canon as a teenager, don’t you?  Anyway, you can pop over there and read it, or wait until I re-post it here some time towards the end of the month.  The choice is yours.

So it turns out that yesterday’s ‘under the weather’ thingy seems to have been some sort of random sneezing, drippy-eyed thing that lasted a day.  I’m guessing it was some sort of hay fever that has passed overnight as the pollen (or whatever) has died away.
That means I’m actually here today and the topic I’ve chosen is multi-tasking.

Well, in fairness, it’s books again.
I may have mentioned it before, but I seem unable to read a single book at a time.  My currently reading list at Goodreads borders on the length of other people’s “want to read” list.  The truly embarrassing aspect of this is that I have more books partially read than that list includes, but I didn’t want to add them since it’s already ridiculously long as it is.

I hope I’m not the only person who ‘multi-tasks’ her book reading?  It’s nice to be unique, but not quite so much.

In addition to my multitude of physical books I am also adding, as of yesterday evening, an audiobook.  I’ve cracked the cover (or pressed the play button) on Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye and so far I’m enjoying it.  The narrator isn’t annoying me too much – which is always a worry with audiobooks – and I’m starting to follow the story along nicely.
One thing I’ve noticed is that it can be tricky picking up on descriptive passages depending on the manner of the narration and getting used to the way the story is being told.  I’m starting to think that I need to ‘get my ear in’ with some narrators more than others.  Have any of you noticed that, or is it just me?

It could be a cultural thing too.  I’m very tuned in to British accents and stories and a little less so with American ones.  This, despite a love of noir films and the Bogart era of hardboiled detective movies.  Oh well, I do love to stretch myself and this is a perfectly pleasant way to do it.

I’m now also picking that The Long Goodbye will end up being my next review over at the Book Blog as it is easy reading/listening.  Poor old Cat’s Cradle may have to wait it’s turn.

So ‘fess up… are you a multi-tasking, or a single-tasking book reader?