It's alright...no need for panic...I've hijacked my blog back.

I am not, in fact, having any sort of obscene relationship with a book. A little fondling is not so terrible, is it? After all, it's filled with all these wonderful illustrations...I couldn't help myself.

Actually, I am in the midst of a big reading phase these days. I've always been a bookworm, but here lately there seem to be so many wonderful things to read that I can't bear to finish one book without the next already in hand and waiting for me.

Right now I'm reading Stephen King's 'The Dark Tower', which is the last of the gunslinger series. As I mentioned before, the illustrations are beautiful, and I'm hoping the story is equally good. I'm actually almost afraid to read this one, because my expectations are so high. How could they not be after reading the previous six books in the series and mostly loving them? What's going to happen? Will Roland breach the Tower? Will the Crimson King fall? What of Jake and Eddie and Susannah? And Oy? Will there be an ultimately satisfying ending for them? And how is Stephen King going to deal with the fact that he killed himself off in the last book? And what about the little teasing threads of the Tower series that have appeared in his other books? I am anxiously awaiting an appearance by Jack from 'The Talisman' and 'Black House.' I'm afraid I'll be disappointed if he doesn't show up. I will post a follow up to this, wherein I won't answer these questions (don't want to spoil it for anyone else), but I will indicate my general level of satisfaction with the outcome.

The book I just finished is called 'The Passage' by Connie Willis. It was excellent. I blew through about 800 pages in record time, even for me. This one was about a couple of people who were researching the Near Death Experience and what it's purpose might be. It wasn't a 'light at the end of the tunnel' kind of cheesy thing, either. It was more scientific, and very compelling. Kept me turning pages.

In addition to that, I'm also in the middle of reading 'Blow Fly' by Patricia Cornwell. I put it down to read 'The Dark Tower'. I don't have a very high expectation for this book, but I'm reading it because I used to love Patricia Cornwell and I'm giving her one more chance. Basically my problem with her is that her character, Kay Scarpetta, a medical examiner, has gotten progressively more depressed and the degree to which her life sucks has increased significantly over the course of this series of books...until after the last book, 'Black Notice', I just wanted her to go throw herself under a bus. I don't know how this character gets up in the mornings. But...being an eternal optimist, I'm hoping things will be looking up for ol' Kay. We'll see. There's yet another book in this series which is out in hardback now, and if this one turns out to be less relentlessly miserable and depressing than the last few, I'll buy it.

Another series of books I'm really enjoying are Janet Evanovich's 'One for the Money', 'Two for the Dough', etc. series. These are great! They are the literary equivalent of potato chips and you can't eat just one. There are ten of these, and I'm up to the fifth. As soon as I finish with Stephen King and Patricia Cornwell, I'll be returning to Janet Evanovich. With this author, it's all about the story and the characters. She doesn't bother much with flowery language, but the story will grab you and drag you right along, and the characters are so quirky and fun that you end up really bonding with them. Stephanie Plum, Evanovich's main character, is a fledgling bounty hunter, who has an entire array of unlikely sidekicks to help her out -- chief among them is Lula, an ex-hooker, but there's also a drag queen, a dwarf, a hamster, and Stephanie's crazy grandmother -- and who knows who else will turn up in the next five books. I can't wait.

Another writer I've recently discovered who deserves a mention is Lisa Scottoline. She gets compared to John Grisham because they are both lawyers and write legal thrillers, but I actually prefer her stories to his. Firstly, her main characters are pretty much always women, which is fun, but secondly and most importantly, her pacing is incredible. Don't pick up one of her books if you aren't prepared to be engaged right from the first page. Her stories start off fast and only speed up as they go. Go to www.scottoline.com to see what I mean - she has first chapters to most of her books posted online.

What's everyone else reading? :)