July 24, 2017

24 in 48 Readathon Update #4

Here we are. Less than 4 hours left of the Readathon. I finished another book, and I've read for 11 hours total. I was aiming for 12, but 11 might be the best I've ever done in a readathon, so it's not a total loss. Plus, I finished 3 books!

My kid's plane is due in an hour and he is sick, so I probably won't have a lot of time to read tonight. Poor kid.

The last book I finished is The Jewels of Paradise by Donna Leon. About halfway through I realized this was not going to be a Guido Brunetti mystery. But by that time, I was too engrossed in the story to be disappointed. In this one, Caterina is hired by a couple of men in Venice to research the documents of one of their ancestors which have been buried in a vault held by the Catholic church for centuries. They want to know if his papers reveal a fondness for one side of the family over the other, so they know who gets the treasure. They have hired a lawyer to make up the work contract and be the intermediary between them and her.

The ancestor is a famous composer of operas from the 1600-1700s called Agostino Steffani. He spent his life trying to convince German rulers to return to the Catholic church. Occasionally, he composed. He was named Abbe, and eventually Bishop. It's a very convoluted story, but it is indeed a mystery, and Caterina's researching of the whole thing is fascinating.

The writing is pure Donna Leon, so I flew through the whole thing in less than a day. Even with sleeping 9 hours, and taking a 3 hour trip to the grocery store.

8/10 bookmarks.

I think this is the end of the readathon for me. It was a blast, and I'm very lucky that it came at the beginning of my quarter when I could still get ahead in my work to take part.