My brain has been so scattered this week. Projects that have been inching along keep colliding with obstacles that are impossible to resolve quickly because they need input from other people. For today, I may have given up for the most part.

I ended up at the library where I decided to seek out Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale (note: 2 separate links here). Someone online somewhere raved about it and I'm embarrassed to admit I thought it must be new. I recently heard an NPR interview with Helprin and decided it was high time I investigate his work. So here I sit with all 670 pages before me. The book's leading selling point was the fact that it's set in New York City. Of course.

As far as Kate Atkinson's Case Histories is concerned, I can say I thoroughly enjoyed it and will read more of her work. After the first brilliant 100 pages, though, she had difficulty managing all the threads of the three different cases and the personal predicament of the private detective. I had no trouble keeping the stories straight, but the description of events and the overlapping of the cases became very confused at times. Atkinson just needed more time with the manuscript. Now that I think of it, isn't that my solution to every book's problem? But don't hold off reading it because of this flaw. It's well worth the time.