s books and a t

I have currently completed 4 books that took me a long time to read - well, let me restate that:

1. I have completed 3 books.  I will finish the 4th book while I'm sitting here waiting for all the recalls on my car to be fixed.
2. One book took me 5 months to complete because I was reading it in between all of my library books.  The second book took me 1 month to read because I was busy.  The third book took me 2 hours to read.  The fourth book has taken me 1 week if I can finish it in the next 2 hours - which I can because there's not so much left.

Wow!  What a boring introduction.  I had a blowout on the interstate on my way to Atlanta 2 weeks ago. That's interesting.

Instead of my normal book review/questionaire, I am going to tell you a bit about each book because that will be so much faster.

The Tryst by Grace Livingston Hill is one of the many books I bought for $1 at an antique store.  The title makes me laugh because you would think it was about a tawdry affair.  Not so.  It's about a girl who runs away from home (the tawdry part) and a young man who becomes a preacher.  It was a rather boring book but very clean and not at all a modern tryst.  The tryst is a meeting between the preacher and the Lord.  GLH also referred to the gap in the mountains as something that would not be used to describe such a thing nowadays, but now that I want to tell you this, I can't remember what the word was.

Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck is the sequel to Cannery Row.  JS continues the story of the characters in Cannery Row - leaving behind the Chinese store owner and picking up Suzy, Jesus and Mary (one man not a man and a woman - do not be confused), and the brothel owner might have been a new one but I couldn't remember the name of the woman in the first book.  Anyway - Doc falls in love.  I am now awaiting the arrival of the movie through my Netflix.  Both books were a little difficult to get through.  I did enjoy Sweet Thursday more.

Stuff Christians Like by Jonathan Acuff was a delightful sit-around-while-the-entire-household-is-napping-however-not-appropriate-because-of-all-the-laugh-out-loud-moments.  While staying at a friend's house last weekend, she recommended this book to me.  Since she did a good job recommending my boyfriend, I figured I'd give it a try.  And I was familiar with stuff white people like.  You MUST read this book.  So very, very true and hilarious.

The Silver Needle Murder by Laura Childs is the 9th-ish book in the tea shop mystery series.  I have thoroughly been enjoying the book.  As soon as I finish blogging, I'm going to finish reading it.  Parts of it are still pretty ridiculous, but I don't have the mystery figured out yet.  I also think that's because the author never gives really good clues as to who it could be.  A director was murdered at the Charleston film festival.  The books' formula: The tea in which the book was named after is introduced in the first chapter.  If the victim hasn't been murdered in the first chapter (s)he is in the second chapter.  By the third chapter someone asks Theodosia to help solve the mystery.  There are a lot of chapters where each character is reintroduced and there are a few tea parties and other kinds of parties/events.  A chase scene.  Some weird event where Theodosia is alone.  The mystery is solved in the next to last chapter.  Life is back to happy tea parties in the last chapter.