My 17th ‘read’ for the year is another audio book: The Two Towers by JRR Tolkien.  This is the second book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and tells the middle section of two parallel stories.  Such a structure suffers from the typical problems of a book in the middle of a story: neither of the two stories gets to a conclusion but both leave the reader hanging and waiting for more.  It’s great to be able to start right away with the third book because the thrust of both stories is compelling.  There is some great character development in this book as well as the introduction of some characters who will become important later.  This is I think the fifth time I have read these books (plus I’ve watched the extended versions of the Peter Jackson trilogy multiple times) and I continue to enjoy them.  If you’ve never read them I encourage you to give them a shot.