Opthalmologically Speaking

Could there be any connection between my recent visits to the opthalmologist and the fact that I have perused, read, lost myself in five books since our return?! Nah...

In order read, they were:
Ravenheart by David Gemmell, which I bought at a shop next to our departure gate in Narita Airport. We did have a night flight, so I perhaps should have been preparing myself to sleep. But I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep much and I had a little yen burning a hole in my pocket, so I bought it. Good thing: I went through half of it on the plane and the rest at home when I should have been unpacking the next day. This is spite of the fact that the book itself, as Book Three in a series, was breaking my rule of "read a series in chronological order".

Didn't get much reading done for the rest of the week, but the following Monday I packed Koji off to the library to hunt for the rest of the series. I found, and subsequently stayed up much too late reading Sword in the Storm (which has one of those nasty scary stereotypical fantasy book covers that I don't like). I also picked up a book from that Time list, but I didn't read it because it wasn't about the Rigante. Instead, I wandered over to my own bookshelf and picked up Tales from Earthsea & The Other Wind, which I read with great interest though in order to do so I had to make another exception to the aforementioned rule about series. I haven't read the Earthsea Cycle, though I've seen the SciFi Channel miniseries version...

Maddeningly, my next visit to the library did not yield the second book in David Gemmell's series, so I had no choice but to skip ahead to Stormrider, which was a mostly satisfying conclusion to the series, I think, though I don't actually have all the information yet, do I? Better luck on my next trip to the library?

Finally, I polished off a book from the NEW section of the library, The Crown Rose. It was billed as historical fiction set in medieval France, so I read it with great interest as I don't know much about that time and place. *spoiler alert!* My interest flagged towards the end when the author managed to tie the people and events together around some central figures who were revealed to be the son and daughters of Mary Magdalene by Jesus Christ.

I kept reading anyway, but my enjoyment was spoiled. Why do authors want to ride on the coattails of The DaVinci Code? Rhetorical question, I know it's because that's what's selling big these days. But as for me, I just don't like it when people tell lies about Jesus, even in the guise of fiction.

Off to put some drops in my eyes...