I'm Reading Something Worth Reading, Thank God.

After the profound disappointment of Stieg Larsson's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, I need something well-written and profound to chase away the unpleasant aftertaste.

The Age of Reagan: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order, 1964 – 1980, by Steven F. Hayward.

The blog in which I reviewed "Girl" is called The Murder Room, named after P.D.James' book, and concentrates on my obsession with mystery genre, my guilty pleasure.

Age of Reagan is NOT in the genre. I will be handling that book review in this my new blog, The Cluttered Corner.

I am also reading The Black Moth by Georgette Heyer, a historical romance. I will review that book, also in The Cluttered Corner, but only at completion. I am not a fan of the romance genre especially in its current incarnation of feminine emotional pornography overdrawn with politically correct female protagonists way, way out of step with actual female experience in the time in which the stories are set.

But Georgette Heyer is widely credited with starting our modern historical romance genre. One might credit Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters and others with the provenance and there is much to be said to support that claim. But Heyer wrote in our times about a time long gone; Austen, the Brontes and other foremothers wrote about their own time at the time they lived.

Not in the same league as Steven Hayward's books, still Heyer is also worth reading if only to appreciate how in touch she is with enduring feminine reality. (In stark contrast to Stieg Larsson's male fantasies. I digress. Sorry for the pot shot.)

By the way, I highly recommend Heyer’s historical romance novels Frederika and A Civil Contract. You will not have heaving this and engorged that, but rather a mature (meant in the highest possible sense), insightful story of women in Regency and Early Victorian time periods. No, it is not great literature on par with, say, Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, but pleasant.

And since I am recommending things, do get the unabridged audio book of Anna Karenina and enjoy its being read to you. You will keep the many, many characters straight and the sheer pleasure of the performance is a treat not to be missed.