A is for Awesome

I buy the majority of my books based off of suggestions from friends.   “A is for Alibi” is the best recommendation I’ve received in quite a while.

The book was a true pleasure to read.  Once I got past the 80’s setting and could visualize the clothes a bit better the main character became a real person to me rather quickly.

One of the things that stood out particularly to me was the difference in how the protagonist was presented compared to other mysteries I’ve read.  Sue Grafton managed to avoid having to callout why her character was quirky yet likeable, there was no scene with her character looking at herself in the mirror to describe herself or reminiscing on how her grandmother always told her she was a certain way.  Instead the character came to life through her actions and her interactions with the other actors in the novel.

I’ve already picked up B and I’m looking forward to diving in.

New Habits

I’ve caught myself developing a new habit while reading lately.  I start reading a few pages of a book, then something looks odd to me.  I flip to the front of the book and look at the “first published date” and usually go “oh, ok that makes sense I guess”.

Most recently it was A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton.  Just into the second chapter I came across the sentence “After I dropped the film off to be developed…” and I immediately had to go see how old this book was, turns out it was a 1982 novel and of course digital camers weren’t popular then.  I was only in my toddler years, and I know I didn’t get my first digital camera until high school.

This has completely distracted me from reading and got me thinking about how much has changed recently and thoughts just came rushing back.  Thinking back to the tv show True Blood, they added cell phones as a normal part of day to day life, but the book sure doesn’t have them.  And yet, I think the car and the clothes are the same as what is described in the book but the don’t look out of date.

Snap to real life instead of books and I thought about the bank of payphones I saw at the airport a few weeks ago, or rather the lack of them.  Out of space for 8 phones, only one was still there.  The rest of the spaces for the payphones had been closed off.  And, I honestly couldnt tell you how much it costs to use a payphone nowadays.. maybe they all take credit cards.

At the end of it all I’m left wondering how long it will be before people reading the novels I do now won’t just intuitively know that there used to be 1 hour photo labs and payphones dotting the entire landscape.  And how long will it be before the idea of running out of gas is a foreign concept in a car?  What about looking up stuff in those 20 volumn encclopedias I spent so much time doing while in school… they were seriously heavy. 

In 25 years will people laugh when they find out how many homes still had landlines and fax machines back in 2009?  Part of me is anxious to see if it’s true and the other part kinda misses having to use a phone book before making a phone call with a real quarter.