Cozy

Since I had so much fun watching movies on Sunday (I watch them on the computer and knit), I stopped at the library on the way home last night to see if they had any DVDs that looked good. They almost never have any on the weekends, which is when I usually go to the library, but they sometimes have a better selection during the week. Not last night, though. There were a few, but nothing that was really interesting to me.

So I checked the "new books" room, and picked up Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon, by Donna Andrews, and it was so good that I didn't watch any movies at all, I started reading it while I ate my dinner (vegetarian soft tacos from Chipotle--so good, but I ate so much I felt like I might never eat again), then moved over to my chair and read until it was time to go to bed, then took it upstairs with me and read a little while before I fell asleep.

It's a murder mystery set in a software company, so of course, much of the setting (and many of the characters) are familiar. And she gets the computer stuff right, which is really rare in fiction.

I don't read a lot of "cozies," which is, I suppose, the genre that this book fits into. There are quite a few authors that do a good job with it, of course, but a lot of them are just embarrassing. There just aren't many amateur sleuth's that can hold their own against Agatha Christie's Miss Marple.

The best ones I've read recently have been humorous, and don't take themselves too seriously, although that can also be a detriment, i.e., too much "humor" can make me want to throw the book across the room. I made it through about one chapter of a recent one that I won't name by an author that I generally like--he's written another series that I absolutely love--but in this particular book, set in a junior college, he had one instructor announce that the suspect was being "busted" by the "cops," and another instructor stepped up to correct his grammar, saying that rather than "busted," he should be saying, "burst," and at that point, I knew there was very little point continuing.

So I was happy to find Ms. Andrews' most recent book. I'll have to go back now and read the earlier books in the series; I'd hesitated to read them because they sounded so much like so many bad examples of the cozy genre. I guess it just goes to show that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, right? Although I often do.

And I also tend to judge books by the way they're printed, too, something I know I shouldn't do, but can't seem to avoid. I'll often pick up a book in the bookstore or the library and open it, and if the typeface (or size of typeface), or the size of the margins don't appeal to me, I won't buy it or check it out. For one thing, if it's a book I'm considering buying, I want to get good value for my money, so if the typeface or the margins are large, I know I'll read it quickly and feel ripped off.

Also, I like to read books that I can get lost in and live with for awhile. Long books. I'll sometimes read something pretty light and quick (I'll probably finish Jumping Buzzard tonight), but if a book looks like a short story that got published in such a way that it tries to look like a full length book, I'll usually pass. Just a prejudice.

And speaking of short stories, I have this weird thing where I think I like them, and I'm always looking at the short story sections of the mystery and science fiction shelves in the bookstores, but really, I don't like them at all. When I read a short story, I'm always looking to see how long it is, how many more pages, and feeling like I have to hurry up to finish it. I'm not sure why that is. I just don't feel comfortable with short stories unless they're by one of my favorite authors. Charles de Lint, of course, or Connie Willis, both of whom write wonderful stories as well as full length novels.

Knitting and books. Those are my obsessions at the moment.

I'm on my seventh pair, this one a very Springlike stripey pattern of pink, green, yellow and white, with lavender dots in the white. Seven pairs, so I now have one for every day of the week. I'm not stopping, of course. I still have a few skeins of yarn left . . .

Here's a good definition of the various mystery genres, with the most important characteristic of a cozy being:

1. A cozy must include at least one cat.