On the bedside table July 7 to 20

I know, it's a two week list this time, but as you'll see, I had a lot of reading to do!  I didn't even finish one book (You're Not So Smart) before it had to go back to the library.

Here's what I've read in the last two weeks

Success Secrets of Sherlock Holmes (Acord) - An interesting book taking characteristics and habits of the fictional Sherlock Holmes and showing how we mortals can use them to be more successful in our lives.  I found the snippets of information about Conan Doyle more interesting than the self-help tips, most of which were pretty standard fare -- do what you love, pay attention to the details, etc. My take-away: I need to re-read the Sherlock Holmes books as I feel some of the traits Acord was lauding were ones that I had found grating when reading the books. 

A Wolf at the Table (Burroughs) -- I love Augesten Burroughs. LOVE him.  I've loved every book I've read by him.  That said, I often mix him up with David Sedaris, who I often confuse with Dave Eggers.  Anyway, this is a haunting memoir about the author's experience of growing up with a father who was clearly quite mentally ill, and how his mother tried to protect him in the best way she could at a time when a married woman didn't have a lot of options.  Burroughs tried vainly to elicit love from his father and the stories are sad, scary and sometimes funny.  Eventually Burrough's mother loses her grip on sanity as well, leaving him effectively orphaned and under the care of a tremendously unstable doctor (see his book Running with Scissors.  Don't see the movie, it's not good.).  Despite the abuse and disinterest Burroughs received from his father, he still tried to get the love and attention he so desperately craved right to the end of his father's life. Kudos to Augusten for turning out as well as he did and writing such great books. My take-away: Living with a crazy person can make you crazy.

The Last Apprentice series (Delaney) -- THIS is why it took two weeks to post.  I randomly picked up book 3 of this series and enjoyed it so I ordered the rest from the library, assuming they would come in at a leisurely pace. They all came in on the same day.  So I had seven books to read and luckily they were interesting enough that I read them all in one go.  Phew.  The basic premises is that the renowned Spook in the area (a Spook is a person who deals with the dark, driving away ghosts, battling witches and trying to make the area safe) has trained 30 apprentices, many of whom didn't survive, and hasn't found one that can replace him.  He takes on Tom Ward as his last apprentice and throughout the series they battle various forms of evil with the help of a young witch, Alice.  My favourite character doesn't appear until about book 4 or 5 -- Grimalkin, the witch assassin who swears she will kill Tom but ends up being his ally.  My take-away: only order one book at a time . . . .