In the interest of writing about my New Year's Resolutions, I will focus on my reading in this post. It has been a month, and I already talked about the first book I finished in January, Flying through Midnight, by John T. Halliday. Since I already briefly talked about it this excellent audio book, I will move on.
The second book I finished this January was Mr. Mercedes, by Stephen King. This was another audio book that I listened to as I walked to and from work. It sounded so familiar at first that I thought I had already listened to it and forgotten about it. I wasn't too deep into it when I realized it wouldn't have been hard to forget about it. The familiarity of the book, however, came from the fact that I had listened to End of Watch when I was in DC about two years ago. End of Watch was the third book of this series... I just didn't realize at the time that it was the end of a series. Though the story line was entertaining enough, I found the book to be unrefined, like it was a first draft and just never got filled out in the end. Even having listened to two book ends of the series, I can't say I will get to the middle book, Finder's Keepers. Oddly enough, I was an avid Stephen King fan when I was on my first tour at Det 2 in the early '90s. I enjoyed several of his books immensely. I am still not sure if I grew out of his style, or if his style just took a nose dive. It might just be this series, so I may go for something else from him before throwing in the towel.
My third book was interesting, Dreams from Nepal, by Bikul Koirala. It is a fictional story about a boy sold by his parents to save the rest of the family from sure starvation in a rural area of Nepal, not too far away from Pokhara. He worked as a slave/servant for a well-to-do family with two boys in Kathmandu, and later found himself working in Egypt as a construction worker. The story is presented in very much a storyteller's voice, with very little dialogue. The text is riddled with little mistakes that made it past the editor, but all of that can be forgiven as the story moves along well. It felt obvious the author was inexperienced, and I learned through the internet that Bikul is a very talented man with many interests and enterprises. I wasn't too impressed with the ending, but overall I don't think it killed the whole story for me; I read some reviews from people who felt differently. My selection of this particular book was because my daughter is in Nepal as a Peace Corps volunteer. I can't say the book taught me anything special about the people or culture, but in the end, I am glad I read it. This was the only Ebook that I read this month, as the other two books were audio. Having finished all three books within the same month, I feel more confident in saying that the difference in retention, for me, between an ebook and an audio book is negligible.
Since my resolution was to finish one book in each month of this year, I am way ahead of schedule. I was a little proud of myself for getting through three until my daughter informed me she was on her fifth book this year. The difference is that I have a TV and places to go, while she is living a stoic existence in a remote village. Sorry sweetie.
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