A book I almost read

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I thought I’d try reading a book by Kathy Reichs. Bones to Ashes it was called. I grabbed it at the airport before my outbound flight. I knew nothing about her, but the book was in the top ten and carried the legend ‘number one best seller’ on the cover, but then so did almost every other book in the shop!

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Seems Ms Reichs is a forensic anthropologist by trade, and so is the central character of her book. It sounded promising.

I didn’t start reading it until the end of my holiday – I had others I wanted to read first. But I did eventually get stuck in and boy, was it heavy going! By page 100 I think I knew everything there is to know about decomposing bodies and dug-up bones! There was so much technical information that it read more like a text book with a sub-plot of a story beneath the surface!

But I ploughed on. After all it was the only book I had left and all the ones in my hotel were all in Greek! Despite everything I began to form an attachment to the novel’s characters, and in time I became quite adept at reading between the lines and lines of anthropological information.

With just 50 pages to read I boarded my plane home and resolved to finish them before landing back in London. I did reasonably well, but I suppose the heavy reading, plus the soporific effect of plane travel meant I was drifting in and out of consciousness. But I almost finished it, and when we landed I had just one chapter to go. Frustrating or what!

When I got home I decided to finish the book before I did anything else. I unzipped my flight bag, rummaged around in the dirty underwear and ....no book! I suddenly realised that I had left it in the pocket of the seat on the plane. Bugga!

Anyway, I tried to put it out of mind. I’ve now got into another book, but for days Bones to Ashes has been niggling away at the back of my mind.

So today I snuck into Waterstones Book Store, found a copy, hid myself away behind some shelves and read the final chapter!

Ps. I saw my friend Rosey in the bookshop. She was in the section for Quiz Books. I asked her what she was looking for and she said she needed a book on French Cuisine!

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