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Sunday, July 16, 2017

Too Many Chunksters and The Alice Network

I've been wondering why my list of books read has not been growing, especially because I've been reading a great deal since the second week of June. What's going on?

Then I checked back. The books I've been reading, most of them, have been over 400 pages long. No wonder my progress has been so slow! My reading palette welcomes the reading of long books, but I like to have somewhat shorter reads in between the huge turkey-dinner-chunksters. It's getting to the point where a book of 300 pages seems a short read.

Oh, how I hated finishing P.D. James's Devices and Desires today. (423 pages). It was superb, but I always become so mournful at the end of her books because I can't bear leaving the experience of reading them and leaving the entire world that has been created. Crash and Boom. Deflating.

Started a new book to console myself. (Oh, yes, still avidly reading A Gentleman in Moscow and The Windfall (see previous posts for details.)
The recently published The Alice Network by Kate Quinn has received excellent reviews. It's set in France in 1947, but the novel flashes back to the all-woman spy network in France during World War I, known as the Alice Network. Yet the novel also deals with the disappearance of  a woman who was in the French resistance during World War II. I read the first several chapters this morning on my Kindle and wasn't convinced, but visiting all the reviews convinced me that I should continue reading. (It's over 500 pages--why did I have to choose this one now?) No matter, all will be fine, but I'm going to stack up a few somewhat shorter reads on my table.



2 comments:

  1. The Alice Network sounds very interesting and I had not heard of it before. I have been reading too many books between 350 pages and 450 pages lately, so I can sympathize.

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    1. And I so wanted to read several books this summer that are in the 800+ page realm! Maybe it's the humid weather, but I don't think I can get started on them until at least a few weeks from now.
      I had no problem whatsoever with the 430-page P.D. James novel, Devices and Desires. I hated for it to end. So I think I need to find books that really grab me right now.

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