Li-tra-chure by any other name is still a Good Read

I've been reading -- a lot. The good news is that I have already started developing the futures list, based on what's going to be published before the end of the year. I love having something to anticipate, especially after the empty hours that follow finishing a good read.

Child: Gone Tomorrow
Clark: Just Take My Heart
Coben: Long Lost
Connelly: The Scarecrow
Evanovich: Plum Spooky
Grisham: The Associate
Gross: Don't Look Twice
Jackson: Malice
Johannsen: Deadlock
Koontz: Good Guy
Patterson: 8th Confession
Patterson: Run For Your Life
Sandford: Wicked Prey
Scottoline: Look Again

I've never been able to finish Cornwell's Scarpetta as I find it totally tedious; I guess it's true that an author is only as good as his/her last book. I've read many of Cornwell's works and usually breeze right through them, but this one fails on so many levels that I am donating it to the library. Unfinished.

What I like about the authors on my done list is the ability to tell a good story. It doesn't have to be totally believable, as long as the basic plot and the characters can make it seem believable. One of my favorite stories is Koontz's Good Guy, about a quiet, unassuming man who unwittingly becomes involved in a murder for hire plot. He could walk away, but he doesn't because walking away means that someone will die. A person who has that knowledge and does nothing to prevent it from happening is no better than the person who actually commits the murder. Tim doesn't walk away, and therein lies a good tale.

I was totally captivated by the made-for-TV movie, Taking Chance, starring Kevin Bacon, about a Marine Corps colonel who serves as an escort for the remains of a young private killed in battle. What impresses me with the film are the dignity, the respect, and the honor shown to this fallen warrior as he makes his final journey home. The Marine who wrote the initial story, Col Strobl, is a real man (and interviewed, along with Chance's family) who is forever changed by his experience as an escort, which he detailed in a short story that found its way onto the web, and then into the hands of someone who thought it would make a good movie. It does.

Oops: almost forgot another DVD hit: Taken. It's bold, it's bloody, and it's not for the faint of heart, but he did warn the kidnappers that they messed with the wrong guy. Kinda reminds me of the old Lethal Weapon films: totally over the top, but what the hey! With a cold beer and a bowl of freshly-popped, buttered popcorn, there are worse ways to spend 90 minutes.

It's good to know, however, that if I run out of books and/or DVDs, there are still endless Law and Order and CSI marathons any hour of any day!