January Reads

Here are the books I read in January:

• The Miracle at Speedy Motors (Book 9 of the 'No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency' series) - Alexander McCall Smith
• First Among Sequels (Book 5 of the 'Thursday Next' series) - Jasper Fforde
• Tea Time for the Traditionally Built (Book10 of the 'No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency' series)  - Alexander McCall Smith
• The Double Comfort Safari Club (Book 11 of the 'No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency' series) - Alexander McCall Smith
• The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Down (Book 2 of the 'Yada Yada Prayer Group' series) - Neta Jackson
• Storm Front (Book 1 of the Dresden Files) - Jim Butcher
• The Big Over Easy (Book 1 of the Nursery Crimes series) - Jasper Fforde
• Three to Get Deadly (Book 3 of the Stephanie Plum series) - Janet Evanovich

Wow, January was made up of "series" books.

I'm still loving the sweetness of the" No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency" series.   Mma Ramotswe is one smart lady who has old time values.  Mma Makutsi cracks me up with her shoes.  I love that in this world of Botswana, the good guys go through tough times, but goodness does prevail.  Take that, Violet Sephotho!

Jasper Fforde is super intelligent.  And insane.  In a good way.  The Thursday Next series is great.  The puns, the literary asides, the random things  (Temperance Brennan, footnoter phones, defeating oral tradition and its consequences) he comes up with are hysterical.  Only one more to go, as far as what's already been published.  But I am happy to note, I have recently received books 1 & 2 of his Nursey Rhymes mystery series, so I'll still have my Fforde-Fix for a bit.

"The Yada Yada Prayer Group" series is a contemporary Christian series.  I picked up the first one for a quarter last year at the library and got the second one for free from the Paperback Swap web site.  The series deals with a completely diverse group of women in Chicago who are put together as a prayer team for mornings before the weekend-long conference.  They come from different backgrounds (school teacher, salon shop owner, real estate agent, house keeper, bagel shop worker, University professor, elementary school principal, etc.), have different histories (raised in a loving home in Ohio, in jail for stealing clothes for younger brothers, former crack addict, immigrants, etc.) as well as different races and nationalities (black & white; Hispanic, Jamaican, Jew, from Africa, etc.)  They have nothing in common except for their love of God and the sacrifice He made for them through Jesus.  This odd group of women decide to meet after the conference and stay in touch with bi-weekly meetings.  The lead character, white school teacher Jodi,  sometimes is annoying, mainly in her jealousy of another member.  That bit bothers me, but the women's relationships with each other go through tests, but remain, and ring, true.

"Storm Front" (Dresden Files, book 1):  I think I should have read this book some time way after reading "Yada Yada..."   I do not care whether a book has supernatural elements in it or not (Hello?  Buffy fan,  Harry Potter fan here) but when the author's writing has this..... "I hate Christianity" undercurrent/feel to it (Harry Dresden does not believe in God.  Wears T-shirts that says "Easter's Been Cancelled.  They found the body,") it turns me off.  I have the second book and will read it. Maybe I'll like it better after I've stepped away from the first one for a bit.  It just bugged me and it's sad, because the Harry character is quirky (I love that he hates current technology and pretty much destroys anything electronic he touches or is near) and has a spirit trapped in a skull in his lab that helps him with his potions, named Bob.

"The Big Over Easy" is another Jasper Fforde insanity that made me laugh. MAN, he is good.  Inspector Jack Spratt (he of the "could eat no fat" fame) is in charge for the NCD - Nursery Crime Division of the police department.  Nursery rhyme puns and references galore in this book.  Jack must solve the whodunnit - who pushed Humpty Dumpty off the wall and killed him.  Super-fun, just like his 'Thursday Next' series.

Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum is so ridiculously trashy, I love her.  I literally snort reading the stupid things this woman get herself into.  How in the world she's still alive as a Bounty Hunter is beyond me.  *snort* Aaaaaand there's a new movie out!  I don't care what the Razzie's say, I'm watching it!