Speaking of Books

This blog is not a book review blog. I was going to write about D-Day, which we commemorate today, its 65th anniversary, and I have read an article about a Spanish spy, codenamed Garbo, a double agent, whose existence few know of but whose contribution to D-Day and its success was crucial.

But I also have books on my mind today, having spent much of yesterday reading.

The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich. That's what I'm in the middle of. I chose it because I know her writing, and it's good. I read Love Medicine; I've read other stuff of hers. This novel is like a mosaic, with chapters or whole sections narrated by the character under scrutiny, so to speak, in that section.

The book I just finished, Belong to Me by Marisa de los Santos, is a mosaic. And now that I've read it I see it's also a sequel . . . to her first novel, Love Walked In, which I have not read.

Belong to Me is a Desperate Housewives type, written with the author's hope--I'm guessing--to be movieized. Not that the writing is poor. I mean, I did finish it and liked it, sort of. She writes well, and she knows things, which is not always true with young writers. I did not like or find necessary to the story or character development the use of "four-letter word" profanity by nearly everyone in the book, no age discrimination in its use, or any other kind, I'd say. Is that really a selling point? One thing I liked about it: good names.

The book was an airport bookstore purchase, which means total guesswork on my part. Yes, I did read it, but I have given it away.

This book, The Plague of Doves, is by an author with 14 novels, poetry, children's books, short stories to her credit. That meant, for me, that the book promised to be really good. I can't say it is, and I have to complain that it took a turn into total . . . I don't know what. Just into things and characters I could hardly stand to read about. Stuff, although I skimmed and skipped, I hope to eventually forget but haven't yet.