I haven’t done all that much reading so far this year because I have been to exhausted caring for my husband. The books I borrowed from the library were mostly DNF – and they were:

Steeped to Death – Gretchen Rue – I don’t really remember much about this at all. I think maybe I finished it? Pure fluff.

An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good – Helene Tursten – No memory of this at all,  I didn’t finish it and it got automatically returned but somewhere in my memory is the notion that I need to take it out again and finish it.

Lucy By the Sea – Elizabeth Strout – I think I wrote about this somewhere – dreadful book. So disappointed in Strout.  So much so that I have removed all but 3 of her books from my shelves. She has been someone who I always bought – in hardcover no less. Well, no more.

The Cloisters – Katy Hayes – I took this book out based on the location. The Cloisters is one of my favorite museums. The book was tedious. I read reviews after the fact and I should have read them before. All were in agreement – tedious book.

A World of Curiosities – Louise Penny – This is an Inspector Gamache book – 18th in the series. I got tired of these books about 8 or so ago. She publishes one a year and I always pre-ordered them.  I stopped buying them 5 years ago and dumped the ones I had. I get them from the library now and this last one took 3 tries to get through and I skimmed a lot. Ho-Hum.

I just looked at the library book list and it’s too long to continue to write about. One book I took out I had already read, and forgotten I had, I skimmed that. Two books I think I got two chapters in and said “Why, God?”.  Two went on and on and while vaguely interesting I just couldn’t care enough to finish them.

One – just one – I finished and enjoyed – “The Dog of the North” by Elizabeth McKenzie. It’s a sweet book – filled with likable people, even crazy old Grandma.

Over lunch I was dragging my brain through The Latecomer by Jean Hanff Korelitz. Oh no, please no. I sent it back to the library, let some other poor sucker have this.

There were more books – all either from Kindle Unlimited or from one of the free book sites – how many? Don’t know, I don’t keep track. Did I finish them all? Again – don’t know. I can tell you they were of no literary value – just fluff and nonsense. Not great stories and not great writing.

BTW – My contention that no book needs to be more than 350 pages was backed up by a recent article in The Washington Post Book World – where a number of well known authors were asked what they disliked in current novels and they all agreed it was books that were overly long – the 350 page limit was mentioned by a few. Sorry – but 400+ pages of fluff and nonsense? No thanks.

Whereas one of the most brilliant books I’ve read in the past 2 years is Matrix by Lauren Groff and it is only 256 pages.