Last night, finally, after rather too long a time, I finished reading the 16th (I think) novel in Ian Rankin’s Rebus series: The Naming of the Dead. Unsurprisingly, the book was classic Rankin/Rebus – Edinburgh crime, social commentary, Rebus breaking rules – but in some ways this story was a little different from others in the series in that in the final analysis the secrets to the crimes were more stumbled upon than solved through clever detective work. I enjoyed the book – like anything by another of my much-read authors Bernard Cornwell, Rankin’s Rebus novels are in the ‘never fail to deliver category’, but for some reason, or reasons, I rather struggled to get through it, taking over a month, a decidedly sluggish rate of progress through a book for me.
I think that to some extent I have slipped out of the habit of reading in the evening before I sleep. For example, today I have already lost 25 minutes of my pre-sleep reading time to doing the washing up and now to writing this blog entry. The real killer is making the mistake of ‘just watching’ the 10pm News headlines on the TV, something that can easily extend to watching the whole news programme, and the local news and weather and then the national weather that follows it – that can blow 40 minutes in one go (and results in exposure to a huge amount of incredibly depressing information). So, as much as possible, I try to avoid the news. And from now on I am going to really try to get reading as soon after 10pm as I can. To help with this, and as a counterpoint to the wet, windy and cold weather we are experiencing at the moment, my next book is taking me to Sicily for another slice of Inspector Montalbano. In Montalbano’s world of crime the sun is always shining, the weather is always warm and, most importantly, there is a vast amount of sumptuous Sicilian food to read about. It’s going to be delicious.
Tim O'Hare 