March was a very busy month for me, and my reading pace suffered. There is only one book I feel is worth writing about that I read last month. It is not, however, the only book I read. I read five or six, but they aren’t at all worth saying anything about. But that won’t stop me from elaborating after I write about the one real book I read.

Casino Royale

Ian Fleming

I bought most of the Bond series in another Kindle sale, but this first book does not fill me with hope that I will enjoy reading them. Because frankly, I did not like this book at all. I thought it was crap, but with the germ of something interesting buried in the crap.

I knew the gist of the story from the fairly accurate, if significantly expanded, movie. That likely did not help my enjoyment, since I knew most of the twists already. Unfortunately, there isn’t much here to grasp on to other than the plot. The writing is terse, with only the barest of description or detail provided. It is simply bad writing. Perhaps it is social change in the intervening 50 years since this book was written, but Bond came off a prejudiced and unlikeable (worse so than even his worst movie portrayal) with no challenge from the book that he might not be right. Not that he is anything like the superspy he is in many of the movies. He is actually quite ineffective. Mostly, the book is watching an asshole do his job poorly.

Others

What else did I read in March? A bunch of crappy, free romance novels I got from the Kindle store. I won’t name any names, but they were uniformly bad. Why did I keep reading them then? Because it was easy. I would download one to my phone before work, then read it when I was supposed to be working. I was working 70 hours a week, and I needed something to do at work. What else was I going to do? My job? Ha! So instead of reading any of the numerous worthwhile things I have for my Kindle, like a load of Chabon, I read crappy romances. Because since I was a working, I was frequently getting interrupted. That really hampers one’s ability to really get into to a book. So I read something I didn’t really care about. That is what I read in March