From Tolstoy to True Crime

Will I read any more Tolstoy short stories? I might! However my Tolstoy-fest was followed by a weekend of very different books.

First I borrowed and read LeNae's Scrapbooking Basics by LeNae Gerig. This took me several hours to read, which to me is an indication of a good scrapbooking book - one with plenty of text and information and not just pictures. I picked up several good tips, which will no doubt be coming to a scrapbook near you very soon. For the unconverted, here is a link to the UK's most popular scrapbooking website.

Next was Widows by Lynda La Plante. I remembered this as a TV series so I wanted to see what the book was like. The series had several very striking plot twists, which unfortunately for my reading I remembered clearly. The book was still an exciting crime thriller though, even though the author was too fond for my taste of using commas instead of conjunctions. That distracted me from the story a bit.

Finally I read Finding Shannon: the Inside Story. This account of the recent kidnap case was well-written by a journalist with a conscience. He points out the sweeping generalisations which were made by national newspapers about "sink estates" and "the underclass". In fact the estate where Shannon lived had 80% employment. He gives credit to the local community for organising a campaign to find Shannon, even though they were later to be betrayed by the very woman they were trying to help. He sticks purely to the facts but it would have been very interesting to know more about the personalities of Karen and Mick and what could have led them to act as they did. He does give some fascinating asides from the local courtroom, including where you hide pills that you want to take into prison - ewwww! (And it's not where you might think).

Day 145; Book 144