I'll admit it: I'm selecting books I think will be quick reads to get in more books before the year is over. But I failed last week. I started reading The Talented Mr. Ripley and I had to stop. I often think about the fact that there are things I can handle in books but can't in movies (e.g., scariness), but I forget it goes the other way too. I've seen the 1999 movie of The Talented Mr. Ripley and, as I recall, I liked it. But at about 150 pages into the book, I thought: I can't manage another 200 pages of this tension. If it had been a movie, I would have only had another hour or so to endure, and that would have been fine. But 200 pages represents at least a few hours, and could stretch over days depending on my schedule, and I didn't feel up to it. To be fair, I had a rough week last week and it was on my commute home Friday evening that I decided I had to stop. Maybe if I had been in a better mood it would have been okay.
So, when I went out again after getting home Friday evening, I picked up a new book to read on my way. Something I thought would be safely distracting. In October I read and enjoyed Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice, so last week I picked up the other two books in the trilogy and I started in on Ancillary Sword on Friday evening and finished it less than 48 hours later. I didn't like it quite as much as Ancillary Justice, but almost. I'll probably read the third book in the trilogy before the year is up.
