Summer reading

Kristie shocked me the other day by saying, "You never read."

What?

I always have a book (usual several) with me. My car is loaded with them (you should see my trunk). My bed side is littered with books as well.

"I mean you read for your profession, but you don't read anything for pure enjoyment. And graphic novels don't count." (Honey, I'm paraphrasing here, so I've taken some liberties (as I always do) with my recollection. This is by no means verbatim).

She's right, though. I haven't read for enjoyment in a long time.

Krisite even asked me that last non-professional book I read - not counting graphic novels. I quickly said, "The Dante Club." But that was some months ago. Prior to that it was You Come When I Call You, a dreadful horror novel. In the mean time, Kristie has devoured at least a dozen novels. I envy that.

So to jump start my reading for enjoyment, I've read a book Kristie highly recommends, especially since I loved The Dante Club so much, a thick historical fiction book on the first serial killer, The Alienist, so named for those who work with the insane, who were "alienated" from society, so those who worked with them were called alienists. It is the story of a psychologist who is the first, at least in New York City at the end of the 19th century, to create a profile to catch a serial killer. I'm 100 pages in, and though the author, a history scholar named Caleb Carr, layers the historical facts on pretty heavily, it still gripping and intense.