Recent reading roundup

I’m currently immersed in one of this summer’s Hot Books — The Passage by Justin Cronin — which I’m attempting to read with Salon’s Reading Club (look for a future post contrasting that with the One Book One Twitter experience reading American Gods — the short version is that I like the Salon experience better, at least so far). And there are a couple other titles I’ve read in the last month between everything else — though now we’ve got the cable with the World Cup on and the Tour de France right around the corner so my reading rate could slow right down. (There are three copies of The Passage in the Monroe County Library system, by the way, with two requests pending so if you want this one you should get on the list.) But here’s a report on a couple of recent reads before they get too far into the rearview mirror.

My Name is Mary Sutter by Robin Oliviera — historical fiction set during the Civil War about a midwife who longs to become a surgeon, with lots of family drama going on. For some reason, this one just didn’t grab me though I did finish it. It struck me as one of those “look how much research I did into the time period” historical novels. That stuff needs to come through not quite so obviously. We do have it in the Monroe County Library collection, just not at the Key West Library. I’ll give it 3 stars.