My Brain is Full

Summer 2009

Sometime in 2009, at the age of 44, my brain filled up. I had always had a quick and accurate memory, but in the summer of that year I gradually realized that my memory had lost a bit of its edge. I could still create new memories, but whenever I did, an old one spilled out. Surprisingly to me, the memories didn't spill out in first in, first out fashion — instead, they spilled out randomly.

One of my first hints about this had to do with books. I would pick up a book at the library or bookstore and think to myself this sounds pretty darn interesting — I bet I would like it. It was only after I had read a third of it or more that it slowly dawned on me that I might very well have read it already, but I still wasn't entirely positive. Since I rarely ever choose to read a book twice (there are so many new books to read), I decided to start writing down what I've read to avoid this problem. This blog seems as good a place to write them down as any, in case any of these books pique your own interest.

Louise Penny

Louise Penny lives in a small village outside of Montreal in the Province of Quebec. Her mystery novels are all set in and around Quebec and feature Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, the head of homicide for the famous Sûreté du Québec, their provincial police force. A thoughtful, erudite and compassionate man, Gamache continually crosses paths with the fictional village and villagers of Three Pines, a rural idyll that continues to elude mapmakers, cell coverage and Internet coverage.

We discovered these novels last spring when we started learning about Quebec in advance of our summer pilgrimage there. These are twelve wonderful books that follow a single, long story arc. If you have even a passing interest in them, definitely start at the beginning. I read two of the later books first and I therefore "knew a little too much" when I then returned to the first one to read them in order.