112 Books in 2012!

I've never been a terribly competitive person. Sports? Just there for the exercise, not to come in first. Cards? Simply enjoying the company, unless there's $$ involved. But books? Now that's another story! How about you? How many do you plan to read this year? Is it a numbers game or do you just pick it up, enjoy it and put it aside? And, for that matter, when does trying to get the numbers begin to take away from the pleasure of the reading?

Me? I'm off to a great beginning this year with 7 titles under my belt already, not to mention the one that I cut loose on the first disc. My Nancy Pearl prerogative kicking in. Several glowing reviews led me to download In Zanesville by Joanne Beard. I should have known better as I'm a bit beyond "coming of age" novels but it was on plenty of "best of" lists so I gave it a whirl.

This novel was billed as laugh out loud funny but I'm afraid my sense of humor may be a tad different. This was more of a Glass Castle imitation and when the author had an abusive father force his son's hand into the blue flame of a gas stove burner, holding it there until the smell of roasting flesh caused his babysitter, the narrator, to sob out loud, I was finished. I have too many other choices. Just look at my kitchen counter!

I did finish Scott Turow's Innocent on my Nook before the library police took it away from me. I was totally enthralled with this book, couldn't put it down, until the author completely let me down on the finale. I wanted these people to be evil - or should I say - more evil. I'm listening to Last Man in the Tower. More on that later. And, finally, I'm almost done with Michael Palmer's new novel, Oath of Office, which I've promised to review here next. Very creepy folks.

For some reason, blogspot has been acting up for a couple of days and I don't seem to be techie enough to figure out why I keep getting a bright red message saying "an error occurred while saving." You may or not may not get to read my latest musings. If you do, why not let me know if you'd like to compete this year. Let's see who enjoys counting titles and who gets to 112 first. Talk to me!