"Morgan's Run"

A few days ago I found myself wandering around the flat, looking at all of our books and thinking, "I want to read! I want to read a book I haven't read 5 times before! I want to read something new! I want to read a real book, not a magazine."

I went into the bedroom and looked at the bookshelves. The paperbacks are stacked 3 deep on the bottom shelf. The front stack has been read many times. It contains books by Betty Neels and Elizabeth Peters, Tony Hillerman and Francine Rivers. And others. (I'll let you do your own looking up of those names if you aren't familiar with them.) Some of the Betty Neels books I've literally read 5 or 6 times in the past 7 years. I call them my 'brain candy' books. Along with Louis L'Amour, they are the books I read when I just want to 'get away from it all' for awhile. Louis L'Amour = Westerns, Betty Neels = clean romances.

I pulled out the first stack and looked behind it. Nope, nothing looked very good to me at that point.

I pulled out the second stack. Hmmm - there was that book I picked up in England a few years ago, the book about the woman who got sent off as a prisoner on one of the first convict ships to Austrailia way back when in the 1700's. Nope, not tonight...

I pulled out the third stack. There was a book by Colleen McCullough, Caesar. I thought to myself, I think I've read this before and I'm not in the mood for Caesar tonight. Right below it was another Colleen McCullough book that I'd picked up probably at the same time as I'd picked up Caesar, Morgan's Run.

Morgan's Run - a nice hefty paperback, don't think I've read this! How can this have sat on the shelf for so long and I've not read it? I looked at the picture on the front and it really didn't tell me what the book was about. But - I don't think I've read this before.... I didn't even read the back before I decided that this was the book I wanted to read.

I really had no idea what it was about before I opened the first page. I didn't read the dedication page. I didn't look at the map at the beginning of the book.

I just turned to the beginning and started reading.

Somewhere along the way, I put the book down long enough to go peel some potatos and start supper.

But I confess, the whole time my mind was in 18th century England. Yep, I ended up in the same time period as that poor woman who ended up in Australia lived, even though I hadn't wanted to read such serious stuff right then. In fact, I ended up in prison in 18th century England, not where she was, but in the same kind of conditions, just a different part of England.

I read before dinner, I read during dinner (I know, I know - you are not supposed to read and eat at the same time :p ), I read after dinner. I read while checking my email later. I read until Mel went to bed. I read while I got ready for bed.

I could not put this book down. In fact, as soon as I'm finished writing this post, I'll go get dressed for the day, start a load of laundry washing and then - I'm going to read some more for awhile.

Colleen McCullough is an excellent writer. I knew this before because I've read some of her books about Rome. I also noticed on Amazon.com that she wrote Tim, which was made into a movie starring a very young Mel Gibson (saw that on tv here, voiced over into Russian - must read that book!).

I'm not sure why the book sat on the shelf so long without being read. This is very unusual for me. I am an avid reader. I love to read. I read as much and as often as I can.

But I am glad I had not read this book already. It is like having a surprise present, out of the blue, something that just 'fits' right at that moment.

It is not an easy read. It is not a pleasant story. The language gets very rough. There is sex. There is violence. There is heartache.

This is a true story. At least the framework of the story is true. It is the story of one of the ancestor's of Colleen McCullough's husband.

I'm finished writing. Now it's time to get back on that convict ship and see what happens next.