Sweet Tooth

I've been reading some Ian McEwan novels simultaneously* and finished one today, Sweet Tooth, rather appropriately on chocolatey Valentine's Day. (I no longer take valentine chocolate for granted, though, after listening to an NPR story about Askinosie Chocolate.) Sweet Tooth is a spy novel, sort of, and not about chocolate at all.

(I'm also reading On Chesil Beach.)

I was wanting to read Atonement, having seen the movie again recently, but the library only has the audiobook,** Oddly enough, Sweet Tooth relates to two other movies I've seen recently--the wacky Spy, with Melissa McCarthy "running" her spy, Jude Law (and I wouldn't have known what "spy running" was in this novel if I hadn't seen that comic film) and The Man Who Never Was, based on a true story (and a book).

When I encountered the story of a body washed up on a beach in Sweet Tooth, I thought, "Whoa! The Man Who Never Was!" (And, really, I think my mind nearly linked it the way I have linked the title to the IMDb entry, because I sort of dream electronically now. It's scary. I was updating my daughter's FAFSA in my dreams last night, I think....). And Ian McEwan was indeed referencing that case!

OK, there are way too many random coincidii for my brain to handle today: all the Ian/Ewen/McEwan similarity, the sweet toothiness, even the beaches.***

*Because I need a book-in-progress for breaks at work and at home!

**And that doesn't work for those breaks.

***I have never seen Beaches. But now I might have to, since IMDb tells me that Spaulding Gray was in it, a man who most wonderfully was.

Oh, and Happy Valentine's Day, chocolate or no.