I went to Barnes and Noble last night and found six new books that I think I would like to read. My practice is to scope out the books at B&N and then get them from the library to read as soon as they are available. I can’t afford to support my reading habit with my own private funds; I’m on the dole, the public library dole. Books I may want to read (please inform me if you’ve read any of these and know that I’d be wasting my time):

In the Company of Cheerful Ladies by Alexander McCall Smith. This is his newest #1 Ladies’ Detective Agency book. I’ve read Tears of the Giraffe, Morality for Beautiful Girls, and The Full Cupboard of Life all in the past month or so. I also have Mr. Smith’s book The Sunday Philosophy Club, a mystery set in Scotland instead of Botswana. I got all these books from the library, and the Scottish book is next in my queue, so to speak. I find these mysteries to be restful, and the cultural insights are surprising and thought-provoking.

Riding the Bus with my Sister by Rachel Simon. I was at the Hallmark shop a few days ago, and I saw an advertisement for a Hallmark Hall of Fame special based on this book. The author of the book is a professor and writer who agreed to accompany her mentally disabled sister, Beth, for a year as she rode the buses of the city in which she lived. I had never heard of this, apparently very popular, nonfiction book, but I spotted it B&N last night. Since the TV special stars Rosie O’Donnell as Beth and I prefer books anyway, I think I’ll read the book.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. This best-seller is set in Afghanistan under the Taliban. The author was born in Afghanistan, but he now lives in California. I hope the book’s presence on the best-seller shelf doesn’t mean that it is way too graphically violent or sexually explicit for my tastes. However, I do like exploring different worlds through the medium of fiction.

The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. I saw this one recommended on someone’s blog, and although it’s also a best-seller, it sounds intriguing. Whoops, I was googling to see who had recommended the book, and I found a very bad review at Collected Miscellany. Oh, well, maybe I’ll try it anyway.

With No One As Witness by Elizabeth George. George is an American whose mysteries are all set in England (Scotland Yard). Inspector Thomas Lynley and his assistants Barbara Havers and Winston Nkata are chasing a serial killer in this one. George’s books are way too “graphically violent and sexually explicit” for me, but I read them anyway because the detectives themselves are so interesting.

Long Spoon Lane by Anne Perry. Anne Perry has two 1800’s mystery series, one set in the late 1800’s featuring William Monk, a private detective suffering from amnesia, and another with Police Detective Thomas Pitt and his wife Charlotte set in Victorian England. Long Spoon Lane has Pitt and Charlotte pursuing anarchists.

The Ambassador’s Son by Homer Hickam. Homer Hickam used to work for NASa (like Engineer Husband), so he’s popular in these parts. He wrote Rocket Boys which gave us the movie October Sky about a group of boys who become interested in rockets in the 1950’s in rural West Virginia. The Ambassador’s Son, according to Mr. Hickam’s website, “is an exciting Josh Thurlow adventure set in the exotic South Pacific.” It includes John Kennedy and Dick Nixon as fictional characters . . . ???

Right now I’m reading Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. It starts out slowly, but it’s good. The narrator reminds me of my father-in-law. I need to blog about him someday.