{"id":376,"date":"2012-03-09T13:30:24","date_gmt":"2012-03-09T18:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kathleenferrari.com\/?p=376"},"modified":"2012-05-20T15:14:22","modified_gmt":"2012-05-20T19:14:22","slug":"what-im-reading-prudence-be-damned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kathleenferrari.com\/?p=376","title":{"rendered":"What I am Reading – Prudence Be Damned"},"content":{"rendered":"

” If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.\u201d <\/em>\u2015<\/em> Stephen King<\/em><\/p>\n

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I was the kid whose father was always telling her, \u201c Get your nose out of that book and go play.\u201d I didn\u2019t start school \u00a0knowing how to read but I caught on pretty fast.<\/p>\n

I fell in love with books, immersing myself in the goings on of The Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew, and The Children of Green Knowe, and children\u2019s classics like Black Beauty, Lad a Dog<\/strong>, The Five Little Peppers<\/strong> and Little Women.<\/strong> By the time I was in the sixth grade, I was racing though adult novels scandalizing my teacher, Sr. Helena Regis, by reading and quoting from Gone with the Wind.<\/strong> Simply put, I read as easily as I breathed and I still do.<\/p>\n

I read almost anything: romance, mystery, mainstream, YA, fantasy, and biography. I admit to not being drawn to science fiction or horror. After scaring myself witless reading Salem\u2019s Lot,<\/strong> I no longer read Stephen King. It\u2019s only very recently that I have given myself permission to not finish a book. At this stage of my life, I have come to realize that life is too short to waste time reading books I don\u2019t enjoy.<\/p>\n

I am that slightly wacky lover of books that is known as a re-reader. I know this doesn\u2019t make sense to some people but if you are also one of those, then you completely get it. I have a special place in my heart for books that quite simply make me happy. I go back to them when I find myself becoming jaded. Lately, I have read a lot of Young Adult\u00a0 (YA) books that are about dystopian worlds that tend to be dark and full of peril.<\/p>\n

This week I turned once again to an old favorite by a writer whose work I discovered more than thirty years ago, Mary McMullen. She wrote nineteen mysteries that fell into a genre called \u00a0\u201cdomestic malice\u201d.\u00a0 They are not long, can be characterized as \u201clight\u201d and are now dated (they are a lot like the television series Mad Men) but her descriptions of people and places are to be relished. McMullen drops you into a world of East Coast privilege centered around New York, Connecticut and Philadelphia.\u00a0Here is an excerpt from Prudence Be Damned<\/strong>, the book I just finished reading.<\/p>\n

Long ago, he had heard Rob complain to Jane, \u201cWhy does Ma have to look like a picture in a museum or something? Why doesn\u2019t she look like everybody else?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cSince when is everybody else what everyone wants?\u201d Jane asked in confused defense<\/em><\/p>\n

Entering and exiting from the conversation, Devore had said to Rob, \u201cI\u2019m sorry that I failed to provide you with your idea of a mother who\u2019s just folks.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/em>
My idea of comfort<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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You can find Mary McMullen\u2019s books on Amazon and also in many libraries.\u00a0 If you like the world you saw on Mad Men, I think you would enjoy them.<\/p>\n

Are you a re-reader? Is there a book or books that you return to like an old friend?<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

” If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.\u201d \u2015 Stephen King I was the kid whose father was always telling her, \u201c Get your nose out of that book and go play.\u201d I didn\u2019t start school \u00a0knowing how to read but I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathleenferrari.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathleenferrari.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathleenferrari.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathleenferrari.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathleenferrari.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=376"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathleenferrari.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":747,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathleenferrari.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376\/revisions\/747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathleenferrari.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathleenferrari.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathleenferrari.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}