Whatcha Readin'?

Every so often I like to inquire as to what you all are reading out there. All right. So I'm downright nosy when it comes to reading tastes and trends and likes and dislikes. I'm sure you will humor me given my streak of recent bad Karma. There's also the fact that any minute some guy is going to go down to the basement and decide where to begin jack-hammering my cement floor so he can install a baffle shut-off mechanism to prevent (hopefully) my basement from becoming a cement pond. Since I kinda, sorta need to be uh, available, my posting ops will be limited until later in the day. Oh the joys of home ownership.

Yesterday the triplets and I traipsed up and down the basement stairs countless times (okay, so I was counting but I stopped keeping track at twenty-seven) to bring ruined items upstairs and out to the garage to await the arrival of a roll-off dumpster. I still need to pull the stinky carpet off the stairs but that will be the very last thing I do since I'll have the plumbing dudes coming in and out over the next several weeks--my basement job being one of those relegated to when it is raining and the workers can't do their outside jobs.

I also need to locate a place to take my old computer monitors for recycling. I'm ashamed to admit how many I had downstairs.

But in between laundry, errands, assisting Mr. Plumber, pulling weeds and sorting through more paperwork, I'm going to read. And what will I be reading?

In the midst of going through boxes in my basement this past week I came across a book written by Ann Rule titled THE STRANGER BESIDE ME. The book is about serial killer, Ted Bundy. There are, I am sure, tons of books written about Ted Bundy but this one is unique in that the author, at the time a former policewoman turned fledgling true crime writer who lived in Seattle, had been contracted to write a book about the recent rash of killings of young women in the area. During that same time she also volunteered at a suicide and crisis prevention center in Seattle. It was at the crisis center Ann Rule would meet and become friends with a young man who worked the same night shift. That handsome, seemingly caring, young man with the engaging smile and quick wit?

Ted Bundy.

Grizzly, disturbing, baffling, yet altogether rivoting, Rule's book offers a rare insight into the psyche of a serial killer. I'm 'this' close to finishing the book but no closer to understanding the compulsions that drove Bundy or the seemingly laissez-faire way he was able to shift so effortlessly and quickly from 'friend' or 'lover' or the 'nice guy next door' to sadistic, remorseless, sociopathic monster venting his rage and playing out his gruesome fantasies on innocent young women. A diagnosis of anti-social personality disorder might explain the traits such an individual possesses but we still don't know why some people appear to never have developed a conscience. As I said, frightening stuff, but a fascinating read.

I also have a 'reader-lite' book at the ready that I read simultaneously with the non-fiction book I'm reading so I can kick back and be thoroughly entertained. I just finished Sabrina Jeffries, TO PLEASURE A PRINCE and enjoyed it immensely. Downstairs I also discovered a slightly damp Stephanie Laurens book, THE REASONS FOR MARRIAGE, and I just started it a few days ago.

Okay. Your turn. What book is keeping you up past your bedtime or has your rapt attention at lunchtime?

Do share.

~Bullet Hole Bacus~