Ruminations and Juxtapositions or How I Judged a Book by Its Cover

Unless I'm completely engrossed and can't put a book down, I tend to like to mix several books to keep things interesting. Usually I have one at home, one audiobook in my office, and another book to read on breaks or when I have to wait somewhere when I'm out and about. This way I can read fiction and nonfiction simultaneously, so I don't get burned out on either.

Currently I have a fairly typical juxtaposition: two mysteries and a history. The mysteries are The Old Wine Shades by Martha Grimes and The Smoke by Tony Broadbent. The history is How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill. I just finished The Old Wine Shades, and have a few chapters left in each of the other two.

The Martha Grimes I grabbed to listen to in my office. I tend to be less picky about my audiobook selections than my regular reading selections: my two requirements are that the book be unabridged and that the narrator's voice be unannoying. This book fit these two requirements, so although I wasn't particularly intrigued by the mystery I decided to keep listening. It gives me something to do while I'm a-counting out the money.

Even though I wasn't loving the plot I was trying to work with it, until the book started being told from the dog's point of view. Yup, Mungo the dog's point of view. Mungo not only solved the crime, he also planted evidence, and saved some victims that the murderer had locked up. Nope, not kidding. It really happened. I wouldn't have been so irritated by this if I had known that it was going to be dogtective type book. I mean if I had picked up a Susan Conant or Laurien Berenson book I would've known what I was in for. But Martha Grimes seemed respectable. Her detective works for Scotland Yard for pete's sake!! Sigh.

Then there's How the Irish Saved Civilization. I feel like this title is a bit misleading. Ok, maybe more than a bit. It should be called How St. Patrick Was Different from St. Augustine and Created a Christian State in Ireland That Although It Differed Greatly From Roman Christianity Still Retained Enough of Roman Theological Thought To Make Sure That Some Texts Were Copied and Therefore Saved, Meaning That Not Everyone Was Illiterate During the Middle Ages and That Christianity Managed to Hang On In Pockets of Irish Civilization Called Monasteries. Because really, saying that the Irish saved civilization is a bit melodramatic. Really what Cahill is trying to say is that they saved some Greek and Roman texts and some tenets of Christianity that we probably wouldn't have otherwise. I understand choosing a catchy title though, I probably wouldn't have picked it up if it was called How Some Irish Monks Kinda, Sorta Saved Some Parts of Civilization. It isn't a bad book, some of the chapters about how the monks copied manuscripts and the tools that they used were actually quite interesting, but the title is definitely the best part of this book.

And then, the surprising gem: The Smoke. The premise is preposterous: Jethro, a successful London jewel thief is recruited just after WWII to help MI-5 break into the Soviet Embassy and spirit out some important code books and a young Russian woman who wants to defect. But what makes this book is how real the voice of Jethro is: uneducated, yet ruminative, profane, yet hilarious, and surprisingly insightful. Jethro is a fantastic character. And, he talks in the rhyming cant popular among London's criminals, which makes his conversational wit that much more authentic and entertaining. (If you're not familiar with rhyming slang a common example is calling gloves 'turtles'. This is because turtledoves rhymes with gloves, and then is shortened to turtles). The Smoke itself is slang for London. And as Jethro 'creeps' around the smoke, I continue to be interested, entertained, and pleasantly surprised.

So I guess my new methodology is not going to involve picking books based on authors that I think are respectable (e.g. Martha Grimes) or that have catchy titles (e.g. How the Irish Saved Civilization). Nope, I'm going to do what I did with The Smoke. I'm going to pick 'em based on their covers.