I feel a bit raddled*

As happens to me from time to time, I was interrupted while reading one book to take up another. Often, the two books are along the same theme. One book will lead me to another in the same, or related, genre. But it is circumstances and the rules of our local library which actually dictate what the interrupter book will be.

We, in this house, are Jack Reacher fans. We are also cheap and do not often spend money on hard cover additions of anything. This means that if we are to read a new edition, it will be borrowed from somewhere. That somewhere is most likely to be the public library. New editions at our library are limited to 7 day loans with no extensions permitted. If one is reading a book and a desired new edition is borrowed from the library, the new edition takes precedence.

So, it has come to pass that I had to set aside my reading of "The Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follett, even though I was closing in on the end, to pick up "Worth Dying For" by Lee Child. Child does not reach the stature of Follett but his Reacher series is the best of its genre (with the exception of the Mitch Rapp series by Vince Flynn) and the time restraints of the local library combined to force me to put aside the "Pillars".

I am pedantic. I have admitted this several times. It annoys even me. It sometimes interferes with my enjoyment of a book or movie or TV show, among other things. It even interferes with my ability to enjoy the exchanges between pundits on news shows. (Admit it, you enjoy watching those folks battling it out too) A flubbed fact, or improper word, or some incongruity burrows like a worm into my brain and I fixate, obsess, on it to distraction.

So it is with the Jack Reacher novels. the author is British by birth and it shows. He uses words and phrases an American would not. Imagine, if you will, floating down river on a raft. The sun is shining, the current light, you are enjoying the pace and admiring how the light plays through the foliage along the shore and creates jewel-like sparkles in the water. Your raft strikes a rock, the current increases, the water roils, and you no longer have a peaceful ride. That's what an inapt phrase or word is to me... a rock (or several) creating a dangerous and disjointed place I must concentrate on to navigate to peaceful waters again.

Then again, a Reacher book is well worth the risk of drowning. But so is Follett's "Pillars."

* no, not "rattled" but "raddled". But there is a relation.