But recently, and specifically over the last month, I have started to take time to sit down and read.
Back in my younger days, I read all the time. My mum often told me that she could recognize me anywhere merely by looking at the top of my head. She would pull a book out of my hand and send me out to play. I was the girl who walked home from school with a book in my hand because I couldn’t bear to miss an opportunity to read. I read under the covers at night with a flashlight. I read under the desk at school. You get the picture.
I am in the process of reading Louise Penny’s “Chief Inspector Gamache” series. I consider myself an expert in murder mysteries - and yet Ms. Penny and CI Gamache have left me completely befuddled in every single book I have read in this collection. I have never been wrong so many times - and yet I find myself completely entertained and perfectly okay with my errors.
I am currently on Book 11 of the series,
The Nature of the Beast.
It is normally around this time I become tired of a character, bored with the formula and ready to move on to something else. But not with this series.
What is it about these stories that makes me eager to visit Quebec?
Mainly I am drawn to the place, the people and their relationships. At a time when many of us have spent more time alone than usual, there is something comforting about a small community so thoroughly enmeshed in each other’s lives. I can’t get to the places I would normally visit this year, so I visit the (very) fictional Quebeçois village of Three Pines.
All this to say: Take time, sit down, read a book.
Linda
