Whatcha Reading?

The main advantage to being retired is that I can do pretty much whatever I like.  On short notice I can travel. I can weld if I feel like it, putter in the garden, think of Spring and my tomatoes or do nothing at all.  This time of year, the dead of Winter when the garden is mostly mud, I seem to read a lot.  I am lucky to have a used book store just four blocks from my home where I can find used books for a dollar each.  I go through fits and starts, find an author I like and then devour each and every book they have written.  Mostly I read cheap mysteries, nothing too intellectual, just reading for fun.  I like well written books where the author has gone to some effort to entertain me with language, where
the telling of the story is as important as the story.  When I find such a book I set it aside, reading it again a month or so later just to see if it can still capture me.
    I also like "historical books", books set in time and place, a particular geography, the telling of a particular struggle, maybe in a way that I hadn't thought of before.  I will just mention two here but there are so many.  These are books that rearrange your brain cells, make language and description fun, where curled up on a couch one can get lost and find the attempt at self discovery jolting, invigorating,
and mystical if you allow it to be.
   Beryl Markham wrote just one book and died before we could benefit from another.  "West with the Night" takes place in 1930's and '40's Africa.  It is her story, growing up white and a woman.  Two marks against her in deepest, darkest Africa.  At a time when women couldn't smoke she became a pilot, a bush pilot among the elephants.  This is probably the best descriptive book that I have ever read.  It will give you a new respect for adjectives.  She could write about changing motor oil and make it interesting.
   A book I have almost finished is also about Africa.  I told you that I go on jags, finding an author or a topic and beating it to death.  I am hunting for more.  Barbara Kingsolver is the author of "The Poisonwood Bible", a story of missionaries in the Congo in the 1960's when that country got its independence from Belgium just as diamonds were discovered!  It is a great read, well written for sure and one of those books where you will learn a lot:  of history and yourself.
    Johnathon Kellerman is, so far, my favorite mystery writer.  His hero is Alex Delaware, a psychologist who works with the police department.  Very involved, complicated and well written for that type of book.

Screen on copper plate.
I am welding a little.  My latest "painting", a hundred year old screen from a rockmill over  a copper sheet and framed in steel channel.  About 10" X 24"  I think I will put it in the bathroom.