Meanderings from the mind of the Cerebral Rat

Vacation season is upon us and many folks will be going to the beach or just lazing around and in need of a summer read or ‘beach book’ to take along. Traditionally, many librarians recommend lighter reading–romance, thrillers, lengthy family sagas–but I have a different take on beach reading.

Vacation is about the only time that I have uninterrupted time–no laundry or extra work calling me–and so I have been known to take along a classic, a ‘difficult’ title that I have been meaning to read, but haven’t gotten around to yet.  For instance, once when I went with my family to Myrtle Beach, I took Middlemarch by George Eliot.   I had been meaning to read it, but I would get distracted by a magazine or the news or dinner.  I actually finished the book between naps and trips to the beach and I enjoyed it.  This was also aided by the fact that I didn’t take anything else along to read and, being inveterately lazy, didn’t have the energy or wherewithal to go get something else.  Even so, I was glad to have read it.

One of my other tricks is to take along something that I have tried, unsuccessfully, to work my way through either  because I wasn’t in the right mood when I tried it or, once again, didn’t have enough time.  I took Hoeg’s Borderliners along as a backup in case I finished one of Minette Walters’ books (I don’t remember the title–hmmm…wonder what that means).  I finished the Walters book and started the Hoeg and loved it the second time around.  You never know.  (I’ve also done this with long movies that require that you pay attention–Dune, for instance).

Can this backfire?  Sure–you might be left with nothing at all to read, which would necessitate a trip to a bookstore (if you’re a rabid reader like me).   But how bad could that be?  Give it a try and see if it works for you.

Click on the titles above if you want to give my picks a try and enjoy.

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If you are a fan of true crime books and/or books about the Cleveland area, you’ve probably read books by John Stark Bellamy II.   John used to work at the Fairview Park branch of the Cuyahoga County Library as their local history specialist.   I’ve read John’s books and enjoyed them. I knew him personally at one time–we attended the same church for awhile. I’d heard that he’d retired and moved to Vermont, but I’d been wondering if he might have done anything recently. I did a Google search and found that he has, indeed, been busy having authored his first e-book for the Cleveland Digital Library of Cleveland State Univerity Library’s Special Collections of the Cleveland Memory Project (it’s their first e-book as well).

It’s titled By the Neck Until Dead and it is a history of hangings that have taken place in Cuyahoga County–fare that we have come to expect from John.  If you click on the title, you will find yourself at the beginning of the book which you may read online.  It will not be published in paper form.  It is the seventh in a series of books on murder and mayhem in Cleveland.  In case you are not familiar with the others, they are:

        They Died Crawling and Other Tales of Cleveland Woe.

      The Maniac in the Bushes and More Tales of Cleveland Woe

       The Corpse in the Cellar and Further Tales of Cleveland Woe

      The Killer in the Attic

      Death Ride at Euclid Beach

       Women Behaving Badly

Just click on any title above to reserve a copy for yourself.

Lest you think that Mr. Bellamy only explores true cases of murder and mystery in his hometown, let me point to a book he produced about his new home in 2007:

       Vintage Vermont Villainies:  True Tales of Murder  & Mystery from the 19th and 20th Centuries.

I think it will be a long time before John retires his pen. 

If  you have some time on your hands, take a few moments to explore the other e-books in the collection of the Cleveland Memory Project.  It’s a great source of interesting facts, pictures and information about Cleveland, not all of it criminal.

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