Sorry about the focus on this photo – it was really hard to get a clear picture as the book has a foil wrapper and the camera really didn’t know how to get a clear picture I guess. Either that or it’s because I’ve got a cold and my eyes don’t want to focus, either. 🙁
One of my favourite authors is Jim Butcher. He writes two series (well, perhaps he writes more, but two of his series are getting regularly published) and both of them are great. Quite often I’ll like one series an author writes but not the others. The other exception to this is C. J. Cherryh, but that’s another book review.
Anyway, after travelling to Missouri for the weekend (way too many adventures getting there, but I did arrive!) I was heading home Monday after enjoying great hospitality and wonderful people. I’d brought a couple of paperbacks with me, but wasn’t really enjoying the second one and not looking forward to nearly 10 hours of travel and a book that wasn’t engaging my interest.
So, I wandered through a couple of the book stores after I got through security and spied the brand new title from Jim Butcher – a book that I had on request from the library.
Now I don’t usually invest in hardbacks when I’m travelling – they weigh too much to drag around in my carry on luggage. But – it was the most recent Jim Butcher. And I really wasn’t enjoying the book I was currently reading.
I think I resisted the urge for about – oh, 10 seconds? – and bought it.
I sort of remembered that Butcher was from the US ‘south’ and flipped to the back flap. Yup. He’s from Independence, Missouri. 😀 Seemed all the more appropriate that the souvenir I chose to return with was a book written in Missouri!
Butcher writes with wit and not a little sarcasm. The Dresden series is a combination of hard PI and inventive supernatural fantasy. But it is always laced with penetrating insights about the human condition. This morning as I was nearly finished reading the book, one of the characters says to Harry Dresden “Stop learning, start dying.”
How appropriate.