Binge reading: What a blast!

When I reviewed Harlan Coben's latest, "Promise Me," I wrote, in part, "And we can be sure ''Promise Me'' is going to send Coben's stand-alone fans back to the book stores to pick up all the Bolitar series they missed. It's a blast."

Well, how right I was, at least as far as my lovely wife is concerned.

We both had been introduced to Coben through one of his stand-alones, "Tell No One," which is a wonderful book, full of his love of family, but also full of thrills and surprising twists of plot. I liked it, gave it a very good review, and my wife also liked it ... and kept reading, with me, all the Coben books as they came along.

My wife didn't use to be such an avid reader. She'd read novels before and enjoyed them -- including, for instance, Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye," and you know, reading Morrison gives any reader some props.

Morrison is not for saps.

But Maria hadn't been what I would call an avid reader, till she started getting hooked on some of the mysteries and thrillers I was reviewing.

Her first big addiction happened with Jeffery Deaver. I'd read Mark Johnson's review of "The Coffin Dancer" back in 1999 and grabbed a copy of the book, loved it, and gave it to Maria with some reservations. I mean, it had given me nightmares; I wasn't sure I was doing her a favor by offering it to her.

But she loved it, and loved "The Bone Collector," which preceded "The Coffin Dancer" in Deaver's history, if not ours, and then we got our hands on pretty much all the Deaver books that had preceded those two, and we both read and enjoyed them.

In 2001, we hooked up with Deaver for lunch at Il Fornaio in San Jose, and that was a blast. The guy is a great, amusing conversationalist, and certainly knows what to do with a glass of wine. A wonderful repast.

Over the years I have had a hit-and-miss record with getting Maria to enjoy books I like. She loves the books of Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child (well, if Aloysius Pendergast is in the cast), and the Maddog and Englishman series by J.M. Hayes. But she just didn't warm to Carol O'Connell or Gregory Mcdonald. I haven't tried Walter
Mosley or Will Thomas on her yet, although they are soon to be placed before her.

But, again, she loved those Coben stand-alones. When Coben came out with "Promise Me," which was his first Myron Bolitar story in years, Maria was just plain gob-smacked. She loved Bolitar, she loved his amoral best friend Win, she loved Esperanza and Big Cyndi. She was hooked.

So, off we went to a used-book store to find all the earlier Bolitar novels we could find, and when we couldn't get them all, she called me, the desperate tone of a junky in her voice, to tell me she HAD to buy the paperbacks at one of the big-box bookstores. "OK, honey," I said, "Get them all."

I knew her need was great.

And she proceeded to read through them all at a rate of a book every day and a half. And had a great time.

Now I've been having the same great time. I do about a column a month, and just finished writing a column that mentions six books, so before I start reading for the next column, I've been catching up on my wife's reading, and enjoying the tales of Myron, Win and Esperanza. Great stuff. It's nice to share an activity with my spouse, ya know?