Now, the sun's gone to hell/ And the moon's riding high.

Finished The Murder Room 30,000 feet above the Madras-Bangalore flight path (make that 20,000: it was an ATR, and I'm not very good with numbers).

Lessons learned:

1. Love James. For being -- like Wodehouse -- a writer first, and a master of the genre in which she writes later.

2. When will I ever stop trying to outguess a murder mystery?

So, I/ Should have realised a lot of things before.

THE MURDER ROOM
PD JAMES

British classic crime interlude. This is another incredibly reassuring genre of books for me, and James is an old favourite.

Set in England. Featuring well-read Detective Inspectors. Dealing with regular, garden-variety murder. As opposed to obscure, psychopathic killers who need to be 'profiled' by the FBI before they can be caught.

Written elegantly. Never to be confused with the thriller-to-be-read-on-a-flight made popular by the Americans. I've heard this quality described as 'not dumbed-down', but it's a little more than that, I think. A book like this is clearly crafted to be a novel first, and a detective story second.

This one, for instance, takes you to an invented London museum devoted to war memorabilia. And stars mild-mannered, poetry-writing Scotland Yard Commander Adam Dalgliesh.

A hundred pages in, and loving this familiar feeling.

Blackbird singing/ In the dead of night.

STRANGE BEDPERSONS
JENNIFER CRUSIE

Chick lit interlude. Crusie's one of the funniest. And romance novels have always been a staple of my literary diet, even back in the days when I read Sartre and Shakespeare more regularly.

Lessons learned:

1. You are more like the 19 year-old you than you'd like to believe. At least, I am.

2. And that's not a bad thing.