Summer Reading Spectacular #17

Spaghetti Bolognese.

That's what I noticed in two books. Spaghetti Bolognese. In Prison Diary Volume 3, it gets a passing mention but is more prominent in Uglies (see below).

So, on that note, here's what I finished today.

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld is the first in a trilogy about a future when everyone gets extensive surgery at age 16 to become a "Pretty" and about what happens when someone doesn't want to have the surgery. It took me a little while to get into it, but in the end, I quite enjoyed it. I have the other two books on the shelf to read at my leisure.

I also finished reading Anatomy of Fear by Jonathan Santlofer. This is the fourth novel from this artist-writer and I've read them all. His books are crime thrillers centred on art-related crimes, and I've enjoyed them all. For this novel, Santlofer left behind the focal character of his previous three books and started fresh with a new protagonist, a curiously talented sketch artist named Nate Rodriguez. In this book, he also experimented with writing in first-person for scenes featuring the protagonist, while maintaining his usual third-person omniscient narrator for other scenes. I found the transition between the two narrative voices a little jarring, at time, but enjoyed the book nonetheless. Check out The Death Artist, Color Blind, and The Killing Art, too. Plus, I just discovered that he has a new book featuring Nate Rodriguez, The Murder Notebook/span>. I guess I know what I'll be reading next summer.