Finished OF LOVE AND EVIL

Unusually short book for Anne Rice.  Ostensibly it is a ghost story with some history of how European Jews were treated during the late 15th Century.  Of course, we had THE MERCHANT OF VENICE.  But she found an event that actually happened to build the story around.  But mainly this is a discussion between modernist ways of looking at religion and traditional views.  This is Anne Rice...guess which wins out...

But, as usual I enjoyed being surrounded by the author's narrative style and rich environment.

I have now started The Turn:  The Hollows Begins with Death by Kim Harrison.  It is a prequel to her Rachel Morgan series which I have read all of and was very sad to come to the end of.  This is set before "the turn" with an elven protagonist, and Trent Kalamac is also in the action.  I'm looking forward to it.

Finished MAGICAL JUSTICE

From the god's capricious sense of justice to the magic of everyday people, places and things enchanted which is often not that capricious and closer to what we humans consider justice, but not always. This series is beautifully illustrated and very readable.  The stories are presented like they actually happened, therefore not compromising anyone's belief system.

I am now about to start the next book in the series, The Lore of Love.

Finished A COLUMN OF FIRE

Set in the 16th century ranging from just before the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and just after, the action switches between France and England and introduces motivated and strong characters, heros, sheros, and villains, but almost all of them at least partially sympathetic.  We are still in Kingsbridge (but also in London and Paris) where the great cathedral--built in Pillars of the Earth--and the bridge (built in World Without End) are located, but now Europe is embroiled in screaming controversy--and sometimes outright war) between Catholics and Protestants.  Much action and romance.

I have now started Of Love and Evil by Anne Rice.  I always relax into Rice's lush prose and lovingly described world.  Now having just left Ken Follett's 16th century, I jump back a century to the time of Michaelangelo, Raphael, and Pope Leo X and we are in Rome.  Toby, the hit man turned angel's assistant, must now help a deserving young man deal with a ghost or evil spirit which is haunting his home and poisoning his friends and neighbors to believing he is a witch.

Finished PANDEMIC and one other

A couple little things at the end didn't exactly add up, or at least they were a stretch.  But, I'm not that critical.  The book kept my attention and was very readable.  I enjoyed it.

Then I read Poems by Trump:  Whose Boat is the Boat & Other Poems.  I admit I got conned on this.  I went to Amazon looking for Whose Boat is this Boat, and thought this was it plus more.  It is not.  Perhaps I am giving Trump too much credit, but I can't believe he actually said the things in here and even if he did they are too disgusting to print.  Not even worth one star.



I have now started Ken Follett's A Column of Fire, the third in his Kingsbridge saga which started with Pillars of the Earth.  It is now the 16th century and Elizabeth 1 will eventually be queen, sending the countryside into spasms of worry about what will happen to Catholics.  Of course, now Protestants are being persecuted.  Ned, a merchant's son is in love with Marjorie, another merchant's daughter, but her family wants her to marry the Earl of the area, a brute.