Captain dog sez,  "It Has Been Too Long Since My Human Has Blogged."

What's the best book I've read recently?

It might have to be Defending Jacob by William Landay.  I don't really have any compelling reason other than it was a mystery that I couldn't figure out within the first 50 pages.  I chose it for book club because (I believe) it is on the Texas Library Association's Lariat reading list.  That's a list of good books for adults.  They have lists for every reading level from age 2 through high school, and this Lariat list is a recent, welcome addition.  I know a room full of librarians discussed it and deemed it worthy, so I chose it for book club. 

It has been creeping us out all summer.  It is even interfering with our current selection, Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl.

What's the best book I've read ever? 

That's a tough call.  In order for me to consider it superlative, it has to be engaging.  When I think about what I look for in a book, it really boils down to my level of engagement.  Huh.  Amazing that years of analysis lead to that simple declaration:  I like books that are interesting to me.

Now, how or why is a book interesting to me? 

I guess I can briefly analyze a couple of my favorites.

1)  Margaret George's The Autobiography of Henry VIII:  With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers started me down the road of massive historical fiction tomes.  I'm not really sure why.  I only took enough history as an undergraduate to fulfill my degree requirements, and I took those classes in the backwater of junior college.  I can say I remember not a bit of the content of the class beyond having the same professor for both classes. 

But, reading history because you want to is very different from reading history because you have to.  Of course, I had heard of Henry VIII.  I had heard of Katherine of Aragon (but more from studying Spanish than history).  I have a pulse.  I am aware of the world.

Tudor England wasn't interesting to me until I read this novel.  Yes, the title suggests nonfiction, but it is a novel.  It is fan-flippin'-tastic, and it started mild obsession about 10 years ago.

2)  Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon is the definition of compelling.  It is one of the few books/series that I can reread.  It has a little bit of history, but at its core is an interesting story.  Maybe not entirely original in that it is a boy meets girl, boy marries girl story.  But, it is original in its setting and its machinations.  There is time travel.  There are magic stone circles.  There is historic context and conflicts.  It is not without its flaws, but it is pretty darn interesting.

I guess I could go on and on, but this gives me a reason to come back sooner :).