Lots of rain, a bit of a headache all day and several nights of insomnia take their toll on this Bookgirl. So the only reading I could do today was from one of my favorite poetry collections, Poetry 180. Below is one poem I really enjoyed.
Hope you enjoy it and hopefully more book talk tomorrow.

Lines
By Martha Collins
Draw a line. Write a line. There.
Stay in line, hold the line, a glance
between the lines is fine but don’t
turn corners, cross, cut in, go over
or out, between two points of no
return’s a line of flight, between
two points of view’s a line of vision.
But a line of thought is rarely
straight, an open line’s no party
line, however fine your point.
A line of fire communicates, but drop
your weapons and drop your line,
consider the shortest distance from x
to y, let x be me, let y be you.

I’ve recently finished another wonderful historical mystery by Maureen Jennings, Poor Tom is Cold. In this third installment, Detective Murdoch is back to solve the murder of a fellow officer. You can read more of my thoughts here.

You know I’m a big fan of historical mysteries and in particular those set in Victorian times, and lately it seems like there are so many new ones being published. I don’t mind of course, just more for my list.

Two I’ve recently added are The Anatomy of Deception by Lawrence Goldtone and The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Bronte by Laura Joh Rowland. Isabel just sent me some pretty postcards announcing the Rowland book (thank you girl!). I’ve enjoyed Rowland’s Ichiro mysteries so I have high hopes for this one.

In the meantime I have started a new historical, The Somnambulist by Jonathan Barnes. A novel which begins with this:

“Be warned. This book has no literary merit whatsoever. It is a lurid piece of nonsense, convoluted, implausible, peopled by unconvincing characters, written in drearily pedestrian prose, frequently ridiculous and wilfully bizarre. Needless to say, I doubt you’ll believe a word of it.”

I’m not very far into the story yet but it does have a good dose of creepiness to it.

And, if you are like me and can’t get enough of these books check out The Historical Mystery site. It has a section specifically for Victorian mysteries. And, of course there’s the Lincoln City Libraries Murder by Gaslight site. I’m going to be having a lot of fun checking those out.