The last couple of days I have had an awful cold. Sometimes when I am sick I get tons of reading done; other times not so much. This weekend was a bit of both.

Sunday morning I woke up early to finish "Jazz" by Toni Morrison. This wasn't one of the most accessable books by her that I have ever read and when I was about half-way through I had to read back because I was a little confused about what was going on. But the end tied it all up for me. I had one of those "Ahhhhh!!!! Now I see" moments when I was almost finished the book. I like it when I have one of those. The story is about a women named Violet and her husband Joe who live in Harlem during the
1930s. In the very first page we learn that Joe has murdered his teenage girlfriend Dorcas. The novel goes back and forth between what is happening since her death and the pasts of Joe and Violet and how the entertwine. An interesting part of this novel is that Joe never gets in trouble for killing Dorcas because no one saw him shoot her and the police are not interested in black on black crime. This goes with the feeling of the novel that things just happen and sometimes no one is at fault. I liked this novel.

During my sick Sunday I also started and finished "The Saffron Kitchen" by Yasmin Crowther. I really enjoyed this novel about an Iranian-British family living in London. At first you think the story will be about the daughter Sara but then it goes back and forth between her and her mother Maryam. Maryam goes back to her home village in Iran, a place she hasn't been in 25 years and recounts all of the things that has happened to her before the Revolution. It is really interesting and I like how the characters make real choices that sometimes hurt the people they love but they must make them to move on with their lives. I have read few fiction books about Iran and recommend this.

Right now I am reading "Arcadia" by Jim Crace and am slow at starting it. I need to spend a few hours reading to try and get into it.