50 Book Challenge

Milbarge at Begging the Question haS started the 50 Book Challenge, so I've decided to succumb to the peer pressure. Unfortunately, this is really not going to impress my friends or influence people - the intellectual level of my reading material is generally inversely proportionate to how much thinking I have to do in "real life." Case in point: right after I took the bar exam, I bought my first and only big, fat historical romance book. I didn't have to think for about six hours.



Right now, I'm on a Ludlum kick - but only the old stuff, not the "Covert One" ghostauthored stuff, or titles that miraculously continue to appear long after his death in 2001. I'll probably bend the rule for the last of the Bourne series, but check it out from the library rather than spend the cash.



So yesterday I finished the Bourne Ultimatum and today I started the Scarlatti Inheritance. I've finished a few other things since the beginning of the year, but they were re-reads, which I'm not going to count.



My thoughts: Ultimatum is the typical Bourne stuff, but like most sequels fails to live up to the original. By the end of the book, all I really wanted was for that d*mn jackal to die already so I could go to bed. Ludlum relied even more heavily than usual on coincidences, making much of the plot even more unrealistic than the first two books. And I got so tired of the dialogue in Bourne's head: "No, go away David, I can't listen to you!" But it was as misapplied as it was liberally applied - several times the author had the "Bourne" character shocked at some loss of life or twisted corrupt mechanation that should've been second nature to that part of the character. Scarlatti appears more interesting and original off the bat, it will be interesting to see if Ludlum's writing started out great and went for a long slide downhill, or followed more of a bell curve.



BTW - as a disclaimer, I should admit that this "challenge" to me is actually like having a doctor prescribing more chocolate, french fries, bakery-fresh bread and tasty alcoholic beverages. Not going to be so hard, I'm afraid, except for remembering to blog them as I go.