RidgewayGirl Reads in Munich, Part Four

And just enough time for one final thread. It's been a cool end to the summer, with September beginning with rain and a chill in the air. Still, Oktoberfest opens up soon and the streets will be full of people dressed up in Trachten; Dirndls and Lederhosen, enjoying the last of the warm days. Then we'll wait for snow and the Christkindlmarkts, the traditional Christmas markets.

I plan to read ten books in ten categories, hoping to keep my categories proportional.

Currently Reading



About to Begin



Recently Acquired

Category One.

Short Stories



So this is a pretty picture of the Munich Altstadt with the Frauenkirche in the middle with the red roof and matching domed towers.

Look at that collection of beautiful buildings. So, short stories. Not a stretch at all!

1. Toronto Noir edited by Janine Armin
2. Love in Infant Monkeys by Lydia Millet
3. CivilWarLand in Bad Decline by George Saunders
4. Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
5. Vintage Ford by Richard Ford
6. Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell
7. Mr. Tall: A Novella and Stories by Tony Earley
8. Stay Awake: Stories by Dan Chaon
9. The Dark End of the Street edited by Jonathan Santlofer and S.J. Rozan
10. I Cannot Tell a Lie, Exactly by Mary Ladd Gavell

Category two.



Books set in England

The Englischer Garten is Munich's Central Park, cutting through the middle of town and full of Münchners enjoying the fresh air (sometimes naked) and probably a beer, since there are two beer gartens, including an enormous one at the Chinese Tower.

1. The Cuckoo's Calling by J.K. Rowling Robert Galbraith
2. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
3. A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr
4. Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy by Helen Fielding
5. Much Obliged, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
6. Frederica by Georgette Heyer
7. The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer
8. Personal by Lee Child
9. Kind of Cruel by Sophie Hannah
10. How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran

11. As You Wish by Cary Elwes
12. The Children Act by Ian McEwan

Category three.



This is the Neue Justizpalast, which is right behind the old one.

MysteryCAT and Other Crime Novels

The MysteryCAT is a good way to focus my crime novel reading, but there'll be plenty of other mysteries read.

1. The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party by Alexander McCall Smith -- January -- Detective fiction
2. The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon by Alexander McCall Smith -- February -- Mystery Series
3. Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives edited by Sarah Weinman -- May -- Classic and Golden Age
4. The Limpopo Academy of Detection by Alexander McCall Smith
5. The Carrier by Sophie Hannah -- June -- Police Procedurals
6. Walking the Perfect Square by Reed Farrel Coleman
7. Blind Eye by Stuart MacBride -- July -- Noir
8. Bitter River by Julia Keller
9. Nineteen Seventy-Seven by David Peace -- July and August -- Noir and British Mysteries
10. The Rattle-Rat by Janwillem van de Wetering -- October -- Global Mysteries

11. The Last Dead Girl by Harry Dolan

Category four.



Germany

This is Konigsplatz. Although it was built during the first half of the nineteenth century, it's pretty much an architectural fantasy for Nazis and they loved this place. It is beautiful, although not particularly warm or quirky.

I brought almost every book I had tagged "Germany" with me and most of them are about Nazis. I need to work on reading in German and this is the ideal place -- with plenty to choose from readily available. It seems that Germans share my love for crime novels and I saw several that looked interesting last time I was in a bookstore. I'm also interested in post-war German fiction, so this is my general Germany/German category.

1. Schneewittchen Muss Sterben by Nele Neuhaus (English title: Snow White Must Die)
2. The Girl on the Stairs by Louise Welsh
3. Das Muschelessen by Birgit Vanderbeke (English title: The Mussel Feast)
4. Die schönsten Jahre: Vom Glück und Unglück der Liebe by Elke Heidenreich
5. Springtime for Germany by Ben Donald
6. The Post Office Girl by Stefan Zweig (a bit of a cheat - Zweig is Austrian)
7. Hitler's Furies by Wendy Lower
8. July 1914: Countdown to War by Sean McMeekin
9. In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson

Category five.



Books of the Moment

Not very far into September everyone starts wearing Trachten; traditional clothes like lederhosen and dirndls and talking about Oktoberfest. It's three weeks of fun and difficulty getting on the train home, if one's U-Bahn line happens to swing by the Theresienwiese, as mine just happens to do. And, just as suddenly, it's over and life returns to normal.

So this is my category for those "books of the moment". You know, the ones everyone is suddenly talking about, whether as a possible candidate for this award or that, or a bunch of people on LT are talking about. Those books.

1. Dare Me by Megan Abbott
2. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
3. NOS4A2 by Joe Hill
4. Night Film by Marisha Pessl
5. Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
6. To Rise Again at a Decent Hour by Joshua Ferris
7. The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes
8. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
9. We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
10.Orfeo by Richard Powers

11. As You Wish by Cary Elwes
12. Summer House with Swimming Pool by Herman Koch

Category six.



RandomCAT

The Lenbachhaus is my favorite museum in Munich. One of the paintings is Tiger by Franz Marc.

Since I've rearranged my categories to allow for more from the CATs, I'm going to give this one to the RandomCAT. It will be fun to go through my shelves for books that might fit each month and there is always the possibility of a trip to one of the English language bookstores if I don't have anything on hand.

1. Scarlet by Marissa Meyer (February -- Children's books)
2. Gillespie & I by Jane Harris (March -- Birds of spring)
3. Nine Horses: Poems by Billy Collins (April -- Poetry)
4. The Rose Garden by Susanna Kearsley (June -- Roses)
5. Between, Georgia by Joshilyn Jackson (June -- Roses)
6. The Secret Place by Tana French (August -- Back to School)
7. Buffalo Jump by Howard Shrier (September -- Toronto Film Festival)
8. The Mystery of Mercy Close by Marian Keyes (October -- Book Bullets)
9. The Magician King by Lev Grossman -- (December -- Wish Upon a Star)
10. Yes Please by Amy Poehler -- (December -- Wish Upon a Star)

Category seven.



Non-Fiction

The Deutsches Museum is a mammoth building occupying its own little island in the Isar river. My favorite part is where they have all the old aircraft and boats and trains. It's something to see them close up and life size.

1. Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink
2. Not My Father's Son by Alan Cumming
3. Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
4. Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder
5. Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
6. Moranthology by Caitlin Moran
7. The Witness Wore Red by Rebecca Musser
8. Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh
9. Save the Date by Jen Doll
10. The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

11. How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran
12. The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

Category eight.



Books that catch my eye

This is the Residenz. It's pretty spiffy and the gardens 'round back are also not bad.

1. Sorry by Gail Jones
2. The Passage by Justin Cronin
3. Never Go Back by Lee Child
4. The Maid's Version by Daniel Woodrell
5. 1914: A Novel by Jean Echenoz
6. The One and Only by Emily Griffin
7. Faith by Jennifer Haigh
8. Landline by Rainbow Rowell
9. The Unwitting by Ellen Feldman
10. What You See in the Dark by Manuel Munoz

11. Lake Country by Sean Doolittle
12. The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell
13. Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O'Farrell
14. Sisters by Raina Telgemeier

Category nine.



Books that have been on my shelves for at least a year

This is the Alte Pinakothek, where Munich keeps all of its oldest paintings. The Neue Pinakothek and the Pinakothek der Moderne complete the set.

1. In the Forest by Edna O'Brien (acquired May, 2010)
2. The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen (purchased June, 2010)
3. The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood (SantaThing 2012)
4. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood (reread)
5. Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates (Entered into LT October 2009)
6. The Magicians by Lev Grossman (Mooched April 2011)
7. The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco (Received July 2012)
8. Endless Love by Scott Spencer (obtained June 2013)
9. Back to the Coast by Saskia Noort (SantaThing 2011)
10. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (Sitting around since November, 2008)

11. The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud (July, 2013)
12. Rain Dogs by Sean Doolittle (May, 2013)

Category ten.



GeoCAT

Munich's Hauptbahnhof is a uniquely ugly building. I refuse to post a picture of the exterior, unless I get mad at Munich and want to make it feel self-conscious.

This will be my GeoCAT category. I'm not sure I'll manage to participate every month, given how unreliable I am in general, but this is the CAT that will most stretch my reading and I'm excited about it. It will also be used for book read for the quarterly Reading Globally topics.

1. The Imposter Bride by Nancy Richler (January GeoCAT)
2. A Blade of Grass by Lewis DeSoto (Reading Globally First Quarter Theme)
3. The Dead Women of Juarez by Sam Hawken (March GeoCAT)
4. Falling Off the Map: Some Lonely Places of the World by Pico Iyer (Reading Globally Second Quarter Theme)
5. Trawler: A Journey Through the North Atlantic by Redmond O'Hanlon (June GeoCAT)
6. History of the Rain by Niall Williams (August GeoCAT)
7. Inspector Imanishi Investigates by Seicho Matsumoto (September GeoCAT)
8. At Play in the Fields of the Lord by Peter Matthiessen (October GeoCAT)
9. The Seamstress by Frances de Pontes Peebles (October GeoCAT)
10.The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan (November GeoCAT)

Possibilities:
Jan: Triangle by Katharine Weber
Oonagh by Mary Tilberg
The Imposter Bride by Nancy Richler
Canada by Richard Ford
Harbor by Lorraine Adams
Feb: A Grave in Gaza by Matt Beynon Rees
Ten Thousand Lovers by Edeet Ravel
Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz
March: A House for Mr Biswas by VS Naipaul
Dead Women of Juarez by Sam Hawken
April: The Fifth Servant by Kenneth Wishnia
The Bronze Horseman by Paulina Simons
The Haunted Land by Tina Rosenberg
Prague: A Novel by Arthur Phillips
The True Story of Hansel and Gretel by Louise Murphy
Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler and many more…
May: No Way Down by Graham Bowley
Sept: Taroko Gorge by Jacob Ritari
Inspector Imanishi Investigates by Seicho Matsumoto
Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino
Dispatches by Michael Herr
Oct: The Seamstress by Frances de Pontes Peebles
The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano
Nov: The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
Dec: The Boy Next Door by Irene Sabatini
The Good Doctor by Damon Galgut
A Blade of Grass by Lewis DeSoto

Almost done with the year, huh? Where did the time go?

Happy new thread! I guess we're approaching the last quarter of the year... yikes!

Happy new thread. Loved reviewing what you've already read this year.

Inspector Imanishi Investigates is an old school police procedural set in Japan. Written by Seicho Matsumoto in the early sixties, it's a peek into Japan, a generation ago. In a structured society, still recovering from the aftermath of WWII, Imanishi hunts for the killer of a man found murdered at a rail yard in Tokyo. The investigation takes time, with information requested by letter and with Imanishi following though with every elusive lead.

This book reminded me of the Martin Beck series by Per Wahloo and Maj Sjowell, where the investigation isn't wrapped up quickly and there are no guns fired, but the case is solved by solid and dogged police persistence.

Happy new thread. Where did the time go?

>16 RidgewayGirl: One for me to add to my wishlist. It will be interesting to compare settings for a good solid police procedural.

I'm far too far behind on everyone's threads to catch up so am glad to see one with only 18 unread posts ;-)

It's hard to believe that the year will soon be entering it's final quarter. Of course that still leaves you plenty of time to dish out those book bullets!

Happy new thread!

Inspector Imanishi Investigates has been sitting on my shelf for a long time. I like the Martin Beck series a lot, so it sounds like I will like this one too. It will be a good one for next month's MysteryCAT theme, global mysteries.

Happy new thread! I'm another one taking a BB for Inspector Imanishi Investigates.

Me too.

No kidding about the time, guys. But we still have more than a quarter of the year to go, even if I'm already thinking of Christmas shopping.

And Inspector Imanishi Investigates is really good. I'm always up for a solid police procedural and this one has so much about Japan, a place I know very little about.

It's a BB for Inspector Imanishi, happy new thread !

Another BB here too for Inspector Imanishi! (And about a dozen others from your last thread - seriously, you need to read more terrible books!) ;)

Hope you and the family are doing well!

Thanks, Laura! We are. My best friend from grades 8 - 10 came to visit for ten days, bringing along her husband. We had such a good time. May I recommend Canadians as the Easiest House Guests Ever?

A good crime novel is one that knows when to follow the rules of the genre and when to play with them. Buffalo Jump is a hard-boiled PI tale that knows the rules and breaks them with style. Jonah Geller works for a large detective agency where he was, until recently, a rising star. A mistake has left him with the scar and pain from a bullet wound and a reduction in his duties to filing paper and running errands for other PIs. Geller is both the classic PI, living alone, a little lonely, with a quick mouth and temper as well as an extensive knowledge of karate; he also deviates from the mold, refusing to carry a weapon and nagged by his mother, who would just like him to settle down, like his brother.

Geller's co-worker begins by having him type up his notes, but then goes on to having Geller look in on a nursing home, asking questions in connection with a case involving the possible under-medication of a resident. Geller is also paid a visit by a member of the crime organization that shot him earlier. Ryan is a hit man with a problem. He's been asked to kill an entire family. The problem is that the son is the same age as Ryan's own son and he finds that he just can't do it. His solution is to "ask" Geller to find out who ordered the hit, so that Ryan can convince him to change his mind.

The result is an entertaining, fast-paced caper featuring an unlikely partnership. Geller's an enjoyable guy to spend time with and Howard Shrier's writing never gets in the way. There's also a vivid picture of Toronto, albeit a gritty one filled with crime and people on the edge of getting by.

>28 RidgewayGirl: That looks like a good one. But few libraries in the US seem to have it, mostly in Canada. I've added it to the wishlist, and will hope the series becomes more popular so that US libraries will decide to back-fill their collections. My library only has #3. Otherwise, I'll have to hope they can do an ILL with someone who does have it.

Well then I feel lucky Sandy that the Ocean State library system does have it as well as a couple of others in that series. I added it to my "recommended by LT" collection, and will be able to get it when I get around to it.

I sat at my window now in a state of terror and the terror would not recede. I stared down at Ellis Avenue until it was blurry. I simply could not imagine setting foot on the street below. Two professorial-looking men walked by, one swinging an unopened black umbrella, the other with a raincoat hooked onto a finger and slung over his shoulder, like a TV star. People and their lives. People and their pictures of themselves. It was astounding and it gave me motion sickness to think of it. How could I ever find a place among them and how could I ever learn to want to?

I was too young to see Endless Love when it was first released, and so I've had only the vague idea that it was a sexy movie about being in love with Brooke Shields. Scott Spencer's 1979 novel is not that, nor is it much like the movie, which I watched after I had read the book.

During his senior year of high school, David Axelrod meets and falls in love with Jade Butterfield, who is a year younger than he is. He also falls in love with her chaotic, free-wheeling family, so different from his polite, politically active parents. The Butterfields live in a large Victorian house that is often filled with an assortment of artists, musicians and people who simply show up. They've raised their three children to be without hang-ups, in a particularly late sixties way, and so when David practically moves into their daughter's room and their relationship becomes primarily physical, they hide their unease. But Jade has reservations as well, so when she brings her worries to her parents, they tell David that he needs to stay away for a month, to allow things to cool down. And David can't do it. He lurks outside the house, staring in through the large, uncurtained windows until he comes up with the plan of lighting a small fire, then walking around the block, timing things so that he runs into the family as they emerge from the house to find out where the smoke is coming from. They'll be forced to talk to him then, he reasons. But things don't work the way he had planned, and he ends up sent to a private psychiatric hospital for treatment, a sentence Jade's father finds egregiously lenient and David himself also finds intolerable, as it keeps him away from Jade.

This isn't a book about pure love thwarted. David isn't a hero; he's charismatic and manipulative, ingratiating and self-involved. Neither he nor the reader ever really gets to know Jade. When he thinks of her or pays her a compliment, it's always to do with some aspect of her appearance. He loves her obsessively, but as one would love a treasured possession. Nor is he able to care for anyone but himself.

I thought then as I was to think later: It was too late in his life for me to help and if I couldn't help, then where was the profit in caring?

Spencer takes the reader down the rabbit-hole of David's obsession, and every event and relationship is recounted only from David's slanted perspective, outside of a few brief letters sent to him. It makes for compelling reading, but it's not always an enjoyable experience.

Darryl and Cheryl were married in a civil ceremony in South Carolina because the idea of their families mixing at a formal wedding was simply too painful to contemplate.

Mr. Tall: a Novella and stories is a wonderfully crafted collection by Tony Earley. Set in North Carolina and various parts of the Southern Appalachia, it is a diverse, witty and compelling collection. Haunted Castles of the Barrier Islands is the first story and concerns a couple who have just had an unsettling visit with their college-age daughter and who then venture further afield for a brief getaway in the Outer Banks, as the fault lines in their marriage become increasingly hard to ignore, while the titular story follows Plutina, as she marries and moves away from home for the first time and up to an isolated mountain farm in 1932, with her equally young husband, Charlie.

Each story moves in unexpected directions that make perfect sense. From The Cryptozoologist, where a woman reflects on her marriage to an older artist, while the FBI hunts the surrounding area for a wanted murderer, to Just Married, where Early ties together three seemingly unrelated stories, each tale reflects on relationships, from the tentative to the long-lasting. The final, longer story is different, being a meta-fairy tale in which a local folktale character, Jack, confronts his own history as well as his disappearance from local knowledge, met along the way by Tom Dooley, of the ballad, and some of the people Jack has wronged.

And as a child of the mountains his aversion to blank horizons was inbred and inalienable. Jack thought, How bleak a vista viewed from the doldrums of a squandered life! Then he spat disgustedly because, as a plot man, he distrusted metaphor.

This is the first book I have read by Tony Earley, but it won't be the last. His stories are deeply rooted in the mountains of Appalachia and the South and remind me of Ron Rash and Tim Gautreaux.

Dropping in to say "hi" as I'm trying to catch up on threads!

LOL! Love your second quote from Mr Tall. I may give that one a try.

Lori, I'm falling behind, too. Shouldn't we be posting less as the year goes on?

Katie, I was charmed by Mr. Tall.

>28 RidgewayGirl: It's a hit for Buffalo Jump, which might be a problem as it's the first of a series. I don't really need to have more series on my TBR :)

>36 electrice: - Don't worry, there are only four books in the series thus far so you're not adding too much to TBR. :)

The title Mr Tall makes me think of the Mr Men books. I like the sound of it though. I don't normally read short stories but I have a category set for next year which I plan to fill with genres that I usually ignore. I will keep this one in mind for that one.

Mr Tall sounds promising. I'll have to keep this collection in mind, as I still need a few more books to fill out my "short fiction" category.

>37 LittleTaiko: Good to know!

I've wanted to read At Play in the Fields of the Lord since I saw the movie version, several years ago. In it, Peter Matthiessen tells the story of what happens when a group of American Protestant missionaries come to a remote outpost on a tributary of the Amazon river. There they clash with a pair of American mercenaries trying to get their passports back from the military leader and earn enough money to fill the tank of their airplane with gas so they can leave. The military leader is looking for an excuse to wipe out an unruly indigenous group, the Niaruna.

In At Play in the Fields of the Lord, Matthiessen demolishes the idea of the White Savior rescuing a minority group through selflessness and dedication. While there are several important characters, the two who are the most interesting are Martin Quarrier, a selfless and self-examining missionary who really wants to understand the Niaruna, and to protect them from the forces threatening them, from annihilation by the government to the missteps of missionaries who break-down tribal ties and encourage dependency, and Lewis Moon who, because he half Native American, has never found himself belonging anywhere. In the Niaruna he sees what might have been for his own culture and so is determined to join the Niaruna and to guide them in how to avoid assimilation.

Through the prism of the mist, the heat of the low jungle sky seemed to focus on this wretched spot, where tarantulas and scorpions and stinging ants accompanied the mosquito and the biting fly into the huts, where the vampire bats, defecating even as they fed, would fasten on exposed toes at night, where one could never be certain that a bushmaster or few-de-lance had not formed its cold coil in a dark corner. In the the river, piranhas swam among the stingrays and candirus and the large crocodilians called lagartos; in adjacent swamps and forests lived the anaconda and the jaguar. But at Remate de Males such creatures were but irritants; the true enemies were the heat and the biting insects, the mud and the nagging fear, more like an ague, of the silent hostile people of the rain forest.

While the Americans, despite bringing only harm, are portrayed with nuance and the Niaruna themselves with respect, the military commander, as well as the indians who support him and live in the town, are treated by Matthiessen with not much more than contempt. It would have been a stronger book had he been able to treat those living between the Americans and the Niaruna with the same complexity as the other characters. Still, At Play in the Fields of the Lord is a fascinating story of what happens when good intentions are not enough.

>41 RidgewayGirl: Nice review of At Play. I think you are right that the book would be made better if more attention had been paid to all the groups. One of those rare instances when a long book should've been even longer.

Yes, good review of At Play. I haven't read it but your quote alone makes me wonder how Matthiessen researched the book. It sounds like he's really been in the depths of the Amazon without the benefit of Deep Woods Off.

So far this month, I have read two books. That's a new low, even for me! I did have two sets of house guests, one right after the other; each of which consisted of one of my bridesmaids with their families, so it was wonderful to spend time with them, especially as I'm in a foreign country still getting to know people. So it was wonderful to have friends around with whom I share that shorthand language of long-time friends, meaning that we'd make obscure references and laugh like loons.



The Rattle-Rat by Janwillem van de Wetering is one of a series of Dutch police procedurals taking place in the early 1980s. In this installment, the detectives have to find the murderer of a corpse found in a burning dory floating in the Amsterdam harbor. The victim came from Friesland, on the northern edge of the Netherlands, and so there most of the action takes place.

The mystery plays second fiddle to the interactions between the detectives, to jokes about Friesland and to showing how the changing roles of women affect everyone. There's a lot of odd comedy, which I couldn't tell if it was Dutch humor or simply the author's own, but I found it very funny with a weird combination of sarcasm and charm. The title of the novel comes from the rat they are asked to petsit in exchange for using the house of a Friesian police officer on holiday. The rat, Eddy, rattles rather than squeaks and his behavior, as well as the reactions of people to him, made him a suitable choice for the title.

The changing role of women in the Netherlands is a major theme in this novel. For the most part, van de Wetering handles the subject with agility and humor although, to modern ears, a few of his jokes misfire badly. He almost, but not quite, manages to make the female characters as fully real as the male detectives. Here, the lead detective, the commissaris, speaks on the phone to his assistant:

"Have Grijpstra called. He should phone me." The commissaris waited. The phone was quiet. "Dear?"
"Sir?"
"Is that understood?"
"You didn't finish your request."
"My request is quite finished."
"No," the soft female voice said. "You never said 'please,' so I'm still waiting, as is customary these modern days."
"What are you?" the commissaris asked. "A communist? A feminist? I gave you an order. I don't have to say 'please.'"
"I'm not your slave."
"Please," the commissaris said, "dear."
"Thank you," the secretary said. "I won't insist that you call me 'miss.'"
"Is that so?" the commissaris asked. "The new rule allows for exceptions?"
"I think you're a dear, too," the soft voice said. The telephone clicked.
The commissaris watered his begonias, while reflecting. They were right, he thought in between his reflections. They were abused, yelled at, repressed, underpaid, and over-worked. It had to come to an end, but why today?

The appeal of this book lays in the characters that van de Wetering has created. I'll be looking for other titles in the series.

>44 RidgewayGirl:
A friend gave me a few in that series, but I haven't read them yet. They sound good, though - I do like it when the characters get a lot of room.

I look forward to finding out what you think of it, Eva. The humor is certainly off-beat.

So, I updated my ipad mini, which I mostly use to read library books, only to find after the new software was installed, that I can no longer read those library books offline. I called up apple, and ended up speaking to a man named Fionn, who had an outrageous Irish accent. It's like they have access to the secret workings of my brain, because I just discovered that I can't speak forcefully to someone named Fionn, as long as they have an Irish accent.

Could we run a test of whether that was chance or the insidious workings of a mega-corporation? If you have a weakness for a particular kind of voice, call up the apple complaints division and see who takes your call.

Going to go doodle hearts around the name Fionn in green ink on my Trapper Keeper now.

>44 RidgewayGirl: It can happen to the best of us. Life has a way of catching up with us. I managed to finish a book last night when the hotel's wifi kept fading in and out, mostly out. I finally just gave up.

Ha! You're right - it is near impossible to be harsh to someone with an Irish accent - they just sound so gosh-darn jovial. :)

I know, Lori, it was just that I was all set to finish early, which never happens. Oh, well.

Eva, I wonder if I'd be able to be stern with anyone if I lived in Ireland. My impression, though, from the trips I've made there, is that it wouldn't really be necessary. Also, they have plenty of sheep, which is always calming.

Oh, Irish accents are so lovely! I'm tempted to call up Apple myself, just to see who I get!

Never mind this.

>46 RidgewayGirl: Ooh, Irish accent! Hm, who would I want to hear at the other end of the line? Maybe a Glasgow Scottish accent à la David Tennant or Peter Capaldi.

Or Alan Cumming and Robert Carlyle. Yes, that would also be fine.

>52 rabbitprincess: YES and >53 RidgewayGirl: YES!!!!! Lovely, lovely lads.

The musical quality of an Irish voice gets me every time. I am also a sucker for a Welsh voice. I would love to go stand on the corner of a busy street in Dublin or Cardiff and just listen to the people passing by!

Pretty much any UK accent will do it for me, if I'm honest. Currently been digging on the Scots accent, but you're right Judy, that Welsh accent is also lovely. Plus, they've got wonderful choirs too!

I hear you, Laura. I lived in England for a few years and I was pretty much delighted every time anyone spoke with me.

After reading this conversation I now understand why my Irish husband is so popular :) On a recent visit to a restaurant we were served by a waiter from Chester whose accent was heavenly. He was a good-looking chap too, maybe that had something to do with it.

I have to admit I watch Neil Oliver's series on TV mostly for his accent. Yes, the programs are great too, but they could be on any topic, I'd still watch.

>58 VivienneR: Yay, Neil Oliver! I particularly enjoyed his History of Scotland. And Coast made me want to visit all the places.

Kay - I've finished The Seamstress. 5 stars for me. Hurry and finish!

Betty, I'm halfway through and loving it so much.

Thank you for Neil Oliver, Vivienne!

Hahaha! Laughing at myself. I was sitting here pondering your comments on The Seamstress and thinking, ugh, sisters. I have NO experience with sisters. I should use that book, or something similar as my BingoDOG - 'for something completely outside my comfort zone'

Great review of The Rattle-Rat! I am definitely going to look for some novels by van de Wetering! I was in Amsterdam earlier this year and fell in love with the city, and my daughter is going to school in The Netherlands now, so I'd love to learn more about the country.

majkia, if it makes it more attractive to you, the sisters in The Seamstress don't get along and spend most of the book far apart. It really is an exciting, rip-roaring read, so don't let the presence of sisters throw you off.

Paulina, how exciting to have a child in school in the Netherlands. I liked it so much when we were there last spring.

So, twice a year Munich has a Crime Novel festival. In the spring, I bought two tickets (to Louise Welsh and Donna Tartt), but had to miss them when I went back to the US to take care of my Mom for a few weeks. She's really healthy right now, so I bought tickets to see Ian Rankin and Denise Mina. The Rankin talk was last Monday and was great fun. There was an enormous crowd, and the talk was held in a large lecture auditorium for Rechtsmedicin (Legal Pathology), which had atmosphere. The translator and moderator did a fantastic job and Rankin himself was funny and interesting. He doesn't love Malcolm Fox as much as I do, so I'm not going to hold out hope for a lot more of him.

Afterwards, I hopped a train and joined the rest of my family in the Alsace. It was a wonderful few days and I heartily recommend the area around Colmar to everyone. If I can figure out how, I'll post a few pictures. The villages were insanely beautiful and there were shops offering wine tastings everywhere. Because of the children and the dog, we kept it to two wine tastings and a dozen bottles.

Yay! I heard Ian Rankin was in Munich and hoped you would be able to see him. :)

Ian Rankin and Denise Mina - color me green!!

I do hope he keeps Fox around - he's a good balance for Rebus.

Thanks, RP. Now we've both seen him.

Judy, I'm more excited about Denise Mina. She's one of my favorites.

I think so, too, Eva. I liked him on his own as well.

Manuel Munoz's novel, What You See in the Dark, has the feel of film noir, from the classic story of girl with dreams meets boy and things go horribly wrong, to the fading Hollywood actress sent to film a handful of scenes for a new movie in Bakersfield, California. There's a crime here, but no mystery, unless it lays in the buried dreams and motivations of the residents and migrant workers.

This was a beautifully written book, with as vivid a setting as could be hoped for. Set fifty years ago, in an agricultural town dependent on migrant labor, there'e a wonderfully nuanced cast of characters, from the girl, Teresa, who lives in a room above the bowling alley, and who is a little lonely and a little hopeful, to her boyfriend's mother, whose income depends on a motel on the road into town, a motel that will be bypassed by the interstate being built a few miles away, to the actress, who wonders if this next film will mark the end of her career and whether she cares.

I'll be looking for Munoz's short stories and I'm looking forward to seeing what he writes next.

This book was a surprise to me. It's a large book with a pretty, but generic cover. I knew it was worthy and historical and set somewhere in South America; all of which were fine things, but not things that called me to read it. So the amount of enjoyment I got from this book, the sheer fun I had reading it, was unexpected. I didn't know beforehand that Frances de Pontes Peebles had written a rip-roaring adventure story that ran the gamut from hardscrabble survival in the Brazilian hinterlands to coastal high society to political turmoil to life in an outlaw gang, evading the law and enacting vengeance, all set during the last few years of the 1920s to the first few years of the 1930s.

The Seamstress follows two very different sisters, being raised by their aunt, who teaches them a trade and manners. Emilia longs for a more elegant life, the one depicted in the magazines handed down to her by her employer. She refuses to look at the stolid farmer's sons who would court her, setting her sights on the refined sewing teacher from the capitol. Luiza, tall and with an arm crippled in a fall from a mango tree, has no use for the things Emilia loves. She likes her life in her aunt's house, although she is prickly and rebellious. Circumstances sent one sister to live in luxury in Recife, the provincial capital, while the other joins a band of bandits, led by The Hawk, a feared but canny outlaw. Brazil is changing rapidly, and those changes challenge each woman. Both Luiza and Emilia are complex, interesting and believable characters. They are both strong women, although their strengths fall in different areas.

The book begins slowly, but it wasn't long before I was hauling it around with me to read a few more pages whenever I could. Generally, I only travel with an ereader or a light paperback, but I was willing to lug The Seamstress around with me until, all too quickly, it came to an end.

>64 RidgewayGirl: The Crime Novel festival sounds like a lot of fun. I miss the treats of living in a big city.

>70 RidgewayGirl: - wish she'd write another one.

I know. I'm enjoying the treats myself -- usually I'm in an obscure Southern city that doesn't get many authors who aren't local.

Betty, The Seamstress came out in 2008. It does seem odd that she's had nothing published since then, but maybe she takes her time?

At 600 pages, I can see that possibility.

>70 RidgewayGirl:
I have to say, that synopsis I would never have assumed from that cover! BB taken!

I know, Eva. It's pretty, but it says, "here is a pleasant domestic tale" and not "watch out for outlaws, suffrage and riots." The book, in my opinion, would have been better served with a different title and cover art.

I agree Kay. I picked it up thinking it was a "crafty" type book - mystery or whatever. It didn't turn out to be that at all. Maybe a picture of Luzia with her embroidered outlaw clothes and bent arm.

To me, the cover evoked a sort of historical novel about pleasant, domestic issues. Almost like it was, except only Emilia's story, had she married a nicer guy. I had it pegged as a book to read before going to sleep, happily and on time, instead of up until the wee hours hoping X survives his gunshot wound or LE doesn't.

Tonight I met Denise Mina. I told her that I'd liked that Paddy Meehan made an appearance in Gods and Beasts and that she was still working in journalism. Mina told me that Meehan will show up again, that she'd actually used a read journalist's name in that scene but her published told her that she couldn't. And a bit about the woman on whom she based Meehan.

As part of the reading and questions I also found out that Field of Blood was televised and had Peter Capaldi in it. And the Morrow series has be optioned for a TV series, although Mina is not holding her breath.

She has quite the Scottish accent. And a remarkable haircut.

I imagine Mina to be a remarkable person all round. Lucky you, meeting her.

I really should get more of Denise Mina's books read. So far it's only Garnethill that I've completed but the rest of that series is sitting on the tbr shelves.

Okay, you hit me with a BB on The Seamstress too. I never would have picked up a fiction book with that cover though! Maybe one on colors or the history of thread, but fiction? That cover suggests no plot.

Jealous of you meeting Denise Mina. She sounds quite fun.

Helen Walsh had had a great life. She'd lucked into a solid career as a private investigator, which it turns out she's good at and which keeps her busy, she has a fantastic flat, which may be two narrow rooms in a high rise, but she's decorated it in an Addams Family Victorian style and she loves it. She has a best friend as up for anything as she is and a boyfriend she adores, her twin, like Hansel and Gretel, only evil. And then the Irish economy crashes, she loses her best friend, her boyfriend does something unforgivable and while she meets a great new guy, a Viking god working as a detective, her own career dries up, no one can afford a private investigator anymore, she loses her home and ends up moving back in with her parents, who are not pleased.

Marian Keyes has a talent for writing chick-lit with more substance than is customary and The Mystery of Mercy Close is no exception. Helen isn't klutzy or obsessed with clothes. She's good at what she does. She's also irritable, easily bored and while she does know how social interaction goes, it's an effort for her. She has a large, supportive family. She's also struggled with depression in the past and she feels it sweeping over her again.

This was a fun book, with enough substance given to plot and writing to mean that I didn't feel insulted reading it. Helen never did the stupid thing or needed to be rescued. She has a job to do, to find a missing member of a boy band popular twenty years earlier, and the twists and turns of that plot made sense. I have only two complaints; that she chose the wrong guy and that the loose ends were tied up a little too neatly for my taste, but it was a book that was easy to pick up and hard to put down.

I love Marian Keyes books, especially the ones about the fabulous Walsh sisters. I have this one waiting patiently on my TBR shelf for when I really need a good chick read.

Judy, she is reliably entertaining and this book is no exception.

In Dan Chaon's book of short stories, Stay Awake, all of the stories deal in some way or another with a young man who hasn't been able to handle the challenges life has thrown at him, usually the loss of a parent. His protagonists drift, avoiding decisions, even as the women in their lives grow frustrated. There's a dreamy quality to Chaon's writing, which suits the inner lives of his characters.

I enjoyed this collection, despite the similarity between the stories. One did feature a woman, stuck in the same drift pattern as the men, but that story was the least convincing in the collection. There was one bizarre freak accident that happened to the characters in two separate stories, which was an odd misstep by a usually sure-footed author, because he is a very good writer and I always enjoy reading whatever he writes.

Just fourteen books to finish my challenge, which is reasonable. I've completed three categories, have two to go in four categories, one in two categories, but four in my German category.

I don't have much to say about Jack Reacher's 19th outing in Personal by Lee Child. It's average for the series; there having been much better installations and a few worse. If you like Reacher, you'll enjoy watching him outsmart and out punch the various bad guys.

I do think that Child is either starting to get tired of his famous hero or is coasting. There was some lazy writing and several scenes that felt like warmed-over adaptations from earlier books, but Reacher's still an interesting guy, a Sherlock Homeless as one character calls him, and surely good for a few more episodes.

>89 RidgewayGirl: I usually feel that way with most series by the time they get that far into the series.

I don't usually read horror. Usually I just don't find it frightening; either it just falls flat or it's so over the top it makes me roll my eyes. But Joe Hill's earlier novel, Heart-Shaped Box, was well written and eerie enough for me to enjoy it. So I was ready to pick up his new novel, NOS4A2, and see if he was still someone worth reading.

NOS4A2 reads like early Stephen King, which is no bad thing at all. There's an evil car, children who see more than their parents and pop cultural references aplenty. Manx is an old man in a vintage Rolls Royce, who kidnaps children in order to bring them to Christmasland, his own perfect amusement park and very creepy place. Vic is the only child of an unhappily married couple, with a talent for finding lost objects. How her path intersects with the murderous Manx and what happens is very interesting and well plotted. Vic is a wonderfully real character, as are those who love her, from a junkie former librarian to an obese, Comic Con attending high school drop-out. Hill's characters are not the great and the beautiful, but people living on the fringes of society. He has a wonderful touch with his outcasts, not downplaying their faults and recognizing their value.

As for the creep factor, while I wasn't frightened, I was terribly interested in what happened next. That's not a bad quality in a book, whatever the genre. And I'm left with absolutely no desire to hear any Christmas carols anytime soon.

I also liked NOS4A2 very much. I agree that it wasn't especially frightening but it was a very compelling read. I picked up another of his books, Horns, recently, and I hope it'll be just as good.

I'll be waiting for your thoughts on Horns, Paulina.

>91 RidgewayGirl: - I saw NOS4A2 on the library shelf the other day and stopped to look it over knowing you were reading it. I thought at the time that it really wasn't for me, but your review has me rethinking that. I'm not a fan of horror but "early Stephen King" I could do.

After reading his Locke and Key-series, Joe Hill is on my to-read list for sure. Looks like I can pick up pretty much any of them to try, or does anyone here have especially strong feelings regarding Horns, Heart-Shaped Box, and NOS4A2?

Heart-Shaped Box and NOS4A2 are the two I've read and they are both very good.

It's been a really slow reading month so far. I read all but the last few pages of The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell, but while I was reading it, it expired and the library took it back. I'm 3rd out of the four people waiting to read it, so I do hope to finish it this month. So that was interesting. And I have a large book in German that I'm reading, which was possibly not the best choice when I'll have to scramble to finish my challenge. At least this way the outcome will be uncertain until the very end of December?

>97 RidgewayGirl: Oh, how annoying to have to return a library book when you're near the end! I know how that feels. I'll be interested in hearing what you think of The Bone Clocks. I'd also borrowed it from the library and started the first few chapters but had to return it, as I had some other books that I had to finish for book clubs. I've been meaning to finish it someday, as the start was very promising.

Paulina, the 7/8ths I managed to read were a 5 star read. Really want to read the last tiny bit! I went by the bookstore with the English language section on Saturday and they had run out of The Bone Clocks. They had had a tall stack just a few weeks ago.

How frustrating to run out of time on a book you are enjoying! I managed to read a couple of books while on the trip, and I am nearly done with a third (which is a longer one). Most of my reading was done on the plane as I didn't have a lot of time for reading otherwise. I spent most of my free time just trying to keep in touch with my boyfriend. I'm hoping to finish that last one tonight. I could have probably finished it last night if I hadn't been so tired from the flight. I decided to work on something else that was more or less "routine" and required less thought and concentration on my part.

The Dark End of the Street is a collection of noir short stories by well-known authors edited by Jonathan Santlofer and S.J. Rozan. Like any collection where the stories have been solicited rather than pulled from already published works, the quality is uneven, with a few feeling uninspired and written at the last minute and others being memorable. Oddly, the best stories in the book were grouped at the back, and included Joyce Carol Oates, who writes about how a girl witnesses how the retelling of an incident in the life of her mother changes over time and who is doing the telling, and Edmund White, whose story involves the politics and struggles for tenure in the English department of a small college.

Val McDermid surprised me with an unexpectedly gripping story about an old lover returning for a bit of blackmail. I'd read one of her crime novels years ago, and hadn't been impressed, but I see that I'll have to read something else by her after all. The stories by Laura Lippman, Lawrence Block and Lee Child were all serviceable, but not up to what some of the authors came up with.

I read this as a palate cleanser between other books, and for that it served its purpose well. There were no unreadable stories and they were all recognizably noir, although if you were looking for a book of short crime stories, Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives would be a better choice.

>97 RidgewayGirl: Are you reading your library copy on your Kindle? If you are, you can turn off the wireless while reading it and the library won't take it back when it expires, but it will still be marked as "returned" for the next reader in line. I learned this tip from the New York Times. Ah, the vagaries of e-books.

I'm glad you liked NOS4A2. I do think Heart-Shaped Box was a scarier book.

I did do that, and it just disappeared to be replaced with an expired notice! I use an ipad, which seems to be in cahoots with the evil librarians out to ruin my fun. I'll survive, and there are only two people ahead of me now in line for the book.

And I agree, Heart-Shaped Box was scarier. I also really liked the whole needing to travel more slowly thing.

>103 RidgewayGirl: That trick must only work on the dedicated Kindle.

I'm grabbing a moment on the desktop computer. The cat knocked a glass of water onto my laptop and it will need repair. I think it's dry inside now, and I'll take it in tomorrow.

The vile creature went outside this morning to catch and eat a mouse. He is sleeping it off on the armchair that compliments his coloring.

>105 RidgewayGirl: I'm glad Adrian wasn't sitting next to me when I read this. He doesn't need any ideas. I already know how much he dislikes my laptop. It usurps his spot.

I hope your laptop is none the worse for the wear after the experts work their magic on it.

Carrie, I'm sure it will be fine after I give them a small pile of money. I'm hopeful that because there was just water in the glass, that maybe it can be fixed?

The New Jim Crow is not an easy book to read, but it's important for Americans to read it. In it, Michelle Alexander sets out a convincing claim that our War on Drugs has resulted in shocking injustice. While the percentage of people who have used illicit drugs to some extent or another is the same across all groups of Americans, law enforcement has concentrated on African Americans to the point where they account for up to 90% of those charged. In low-income neighborhoods, being stopped and searched by police is a routine occurrence for young men and there are regular drug sweeps that pull the innocent as well as the guilty into the justice system.

The justice system itself is skewed against low-income African American defendants. Until recently, possession of crack cocaine was sentenced at 100 time the length of sentences for powder cocaine, which is seen as the drug of choice for white people. It's now sentenced at an 18-to-1 ratio. Harsh drug laws require judges to give first time offenders who were caught with a small amount of drugs, including marijuana, to custodial sentences of five years, longer than that received by those convicted of violent assault or drunk driving. Police department funding depends on drug arrests for both financing and equipment, and has led to a 2000% increase in the number of people imprisoned as compared to the 1970s.

And the problem isn't solved when people leave prison. Felons are ineligible for public housing. They can't vote or serve on juries. It's almost impossible for them to find a job. We've created an underclass barred from participating in society, from supporting their families, from being a useful member of society. And that underclass is overwhelmingly composed of African American men.

This is a largely invisible problem, hidden from all but the family members of the incarcerated. The focus is on the War on Drugs, which isn't racist in and of itself, it's just that it's more efficient to scoop up people from high density urban ghettos. And if middle-class white Americans were subject to the same tactics, there would be an outcry. Alexander makes a solid case, but also presents the beginnings of a solution. While The New Jim Crow is a difficult book to read, it does start a conversation that we need to have.

Many thanks to Japaul22, for bringing this book to my attention.

Good luck with the laptop. The comments about the cat made me laugh, however, especially "on the armchair that compliments his coloring" - felines aren't nearly so disinterested as they pretend, are they?

The New Jim Crow does sound like something more of us need to read. Adding it to my wishlist, and checking to see if the library has it.

Sandy, Tarzan is fully aware of how important he is. He was chosen by my then eight-year-old son at the Humane Society and he has always made sure that Max thinks that he is his cat, going up to bed with him and not leaving until Max is asleep, being back in his room in time to get him up in the morning, sitting next to him when he does his homework. Tarzan is a big jerk, but one who understands his responsibilities.

I'll be interested in what you think of The New Jim Crow, when you do read it.

>108 RidgewayGirl: That sounds like an important book, and I've ordered a copy for our library. I remembered reading something about that issue within the last couple of weeks. With a little Googling I discovered it was a piece by or about Rand Paul. It seems that he has sponsored a bipartisan bill to address this very issue. I don't know enough about that bill to form an opinion about whether it's an ideal solution to the problem. In a rational world there should be bipartisan support for fixing this problem. I hope that happens.

>110 RidgewayGirl: Tarzan may be "a big jerk" but he sounds like a good cat. My cat is a grouchy old woman whose attitude is more like "what responsibilities?". She bites people who want to be friendly and cozies up to people who want nothing to do with her. She ignores me unless she wants food or other attention.

Yikes. The New Jim Crow does sound like a scary truth. Sometimes we talk about race in special ed, and it is kind of an uncomfortable topic because it looks a bit disproportional even though educators are on the lookout for things that would cause a color bias.

>105 RidgewayGirl: I sympathize about your laptop. I did the same thing with mine and was actually able to save it myself by propping it up like an open book slightly tilted, draining the water out of a corner that had the least "business", then removing the keyboard and letting it air-dry for a few hours. A guy from the IT department at work had a look at it and pronounced it the luck of the Irish.

Carrie, it's a book that every library should have. It would be fantastic if there were to be a bi-partisan effort to fix things, but I'll admit to being dubious that that is possible these days.

Sandy, Tarzan is a remarkable cat. If he's out, he'll come along when I walk the dog. He used to do so from the bushes, but now he walks right behind us, yelling about it. We get looks. We're lucky to have him as he smoothed the transition to Germany for my son. And since the neighbors all know him, he gives us a reason to chat with them. However, he is still a jerk, as he is a cat.

Katie, the elementary school my kids went to in SC did a good job, but by middle school, not so much. It doesn't help that there's a tendency to be all about the rules and uniforms and not being where you're not supposed to be in middle school. Alexander has interesting things to say about our unconscious bias, and that maybe aiming for a colorblind society isn't helping things. She says her aim in writing is to start a conversation, and there is much worth discussing in The New Jim Crow.

Vivienne, I tried drying it out, but even dry something isn't working. I am hoping very hard that it's just the battery. There's an Apple guy at the kids' school a few days a week, since the older students are assigned laptops for schoolwork. My daughter asked, and he's willing to see what he can do, which is great, because he charges so much less that anywhere else. Crossing fingers. I'm getting more reading done!

>115 RidgewayGirl: I love to watch my neighbor walk his dog...and cat. Every evening the dog is walked around the block and the family's brilliantly white cat follows along. He walks behind too, but then I think he's along just to watch the dog and keep him in line! Such responsibility!

clue, Tarzan is a white cat. I wonder if their utter inability to blend causes them to just be loud and proud. Tarzan likes to talk and walk. He's a Siamese mix, so he has volume.

Landline tells the story of a television scriptwriter who is passionate and involved in her career, but whose marriage is rocky. Over the course of a Christmas holiday apart, Georgie reexamines her marriage and the career that often takes first place. Rainbow Rowell has an easy style to her writing, with effortless dialogue and characters who are both three-dimensional and fun to spend time with. The fun part of this book are Georgie and her writing partner, Seth. Together they're a Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley for the twenty-first century. The conceit of the telephone in her childhood bedroom allowing her to speak to her husband in the past, when they were just dating, is unnecessary to the plot, but isn't overly intrusive. Georgie's family; her oft-married mother, her teenage sister falling in love for the first time, her step-father who is only a few years older than Georgie herself, and her mother's pugs are all a lot of fun. Rowell's good at writing the bit parts.

I do have to mention that in any book involving a love triangle of any sort, I end up rooting for the couple that doesn't end up together.

I don't usually read thrillers. The focus on action often means that characterization is short-changed, with cartoon-depth villains and women who exist only for the hero's enjoyment. That is changing. In his last adventure, not only does Jack Reacher not sleep with his much younger female partner, but he also indicates interest in a woman his own age, wishing that he had time to get to know her in between fight scenes. But the patterns and expectations remain.

Luckily, there are exceptions and the best of those exceptions is Sean Doolittle. He writes well, but most importantly the characters in his books feel like real people. Sure, Lake Country follows the pattern of a guy rescuing a woman in peril, but he's tweaked the expected into something both surprising and a lot of fun to read. The woman in peril is a lot more capable than anyone expected. There are two bad guys, neither of whom are stock villains, although one comes close, Doolittle provides just that little insight into his motivations to make him human. And as for heroes, there are two. A female television news reporter who is both a little burned out and a veteran of the war in Iraq, with a rebuilt knee who is unemployed and spending a lot of time in the local bar. Doolittle doesn't short-change readers on the action. There's plenty of that. But the action makes sense, the hero is not indestructible. His plans don't always work and when they do the consequences aren't what he anticipated. The pretty face reporting at the scene is able to notice things the cops don't and she's worried about what being that person who is first to arrive at the homes of victims means about her own morality.

Lake Country, like the other books by Sean Doolittle that I've read, is intelligent and entertaining. I'm looking forward to reading more by him. Still not a fan of the genre, however.

SantaThing is open! I do love the holiday season.

And it's official. My laptop is dead, dead, dead.



Back to the Coast is the debut novel by Dutch author Saskia Noort. Maria, back-up singer and parent to two small children in Amsterdam, broke up with her partner, Geert, whose mental issues finally proved too much for her. She also had an abortion, feeling unequal to the task of raising three children and working without support. Immediately afterwards, she begins to receive threatening messages and it's clear she's being stalked. The police can't do anything. The stalker is clever enough to disguise their identity, and the harassment intensifies until Maria is frightened enough to leave Amsterdam. She's also worried that people don't believe her. The letters are destroyed. The things that happen are designed to look as though she was inventing the threats and she has no idea who she can trust.

There is a lot that is promising in this book. Maria is an interesting character; prickly and slow to make friends, but loving to her children. She has a hard time asking for help or trusting those who offer her help. The idea of being stalked, and how doubts are raised about the target's perceptions makes for compulsive reading. However, Back to the Coast is too flawed a story to do justice to the ideas behind the plot. The stalker's identity is revealed too obviously, too often and too early to maintain suspense and what begins as a tale based in reality becomes more and more outrageous in the book's final pages. I loved the setting, a part of the Netherlands I have visited and I hope to give Noort another try with a later novel.

I'm sorry about the laptop. I had my fingers crossed that you'd find someone who could resurrect it. Phooey.

Oh dear, I hope Tarzan is remorseful over his spillage! I bet spilled beverages have caused more laptops to fizzle that anything else!

Oh what bad news. I feel your pain, as I very nearly dodged that bullet earlier this year. Mine was a hard drive crash - 2 days after I'd done a complete backup. My computer-genius friend said it was dead, but all it needed was a new hard drive.

On the plus side, you've been reading some really interesting books.

Sorry to hear about your laptop death. Wish I could have sent you some of my Irish luck. The Apple laptop I tried to drown went on to live for years without a problem.

That's bad news about your laptop. It sounds like you've had some good reads lately though.

Thanks, guys. Looks like I know what to ask for Christmas. My SO spent the evening happily looking at computer specs, so I'm glad one of us likes laptop shopping.

>119 RidgewayGirl: I've not really enjoyed the thriller genre much either, but I might give Sean Doolittle a try.

Sorry to hear about the demise of your laptop. Hopefully you've been good enough that Santa will bring you a new one.

To Build a Girl tells the story of Johanna Morrigan, who grows up on benefits, in a large family in Wolverhampton and who manages to get herself a job writing reviews for a music magazine while still a teenager. Which is also the story of author Caitlin Moran. If you've followed Moran's columns for The Times or read either her collection of essays in Moranthology or her very funny book about feminism, How to Be a Woman, lots of her first novel will feel familiar, although less in an "oh, I've read that before way" and more in the way reading about a place you've lived or about a person you know feels familiar. The same topics and events arise.

Johanna desperately wants out of Wolverhampton and dreams of a fabulous life in London, although it's clear to her that Johanna Morrigan, badly dressed, fat and prone to saying the wrong thing, would not be a success in London. So she reinvents herself as Dolly Wilde and finds that when she's pretending to be Dolly, all the outrageous, witty things that Johanna would never remember to say leap immediately to her tongue. Dolly knows how to be scandalous, how to be confident in a room full of purposeful strangers and how to make herself memorable. Dolly's not always particularly nice, but she isn't hiding under her bed talking to her dog. Johanna talks in a Scooby-Doo voice when nervous; Dolly plonks down a bottle of booze on the conference room table and polishes her reputation as a lady sex adventurer. Pulling the two parts of herself together and finding out what she really wants while saving her family might be a little harder.

How to Build a Girl is very funny. If you've liked Moran's essays, you'll like her first novel.

>129 RidgewayGirl: Excellent! Looking forward to it.

>129 RidgewayGirl: Sounds great! And I've given your review a thumb. My library doesn't have the book but if I wait until 2015 I can get it from another library in the system. Not much of a wait.

Sorry about the laptop! I was hoping it was the battery too. If that worked, I was going to take my watch that went through the laundry into the repair shop for a new battery.

How to Build a Girl does sound fun.

>129 RidgewayGirl: Got me!

Here's an article by Moran if anyone wants to see if she's someone you might read without going to the trouble of finding a book:

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jul/05/caitlin-moran-my-sex-quest-y...

The Narrow Road to the Deep North won the Booker Prize for 2013 and it fit the GeoCat for November, which are the only reasons I read it. I'm not a big fan of war stories. Fortunately, Richard Flanagan's book is much more than a war story. It's hard to explain exactly what it is. It follows the life of Dorrigo Evans, a poor boy from a large family growing up in Tasmania, who does well enough in school to be sent for further education, eventually becoming a doctor, just in time for the start of WWII. He falls in love with a girl from a good family, although it's more that he's taken with the family's social standing, and he then really falls in love with an unsuitable woman. He is a POW in a Japanese camp sent to build a railroad through Thailand, where he ends up as the ranking officer, fighting to keep up the morale of his men and to keep as many alive as possible. And then there's the rest of his life, which is haunted by the war's aftermath, with the memories growing more vivid as he ages, and his own personal failing well hidden behind his successful career as a doctor and reputation as a war hero. But The Narrow Road to the Deep North also follows the lives of a few of his fellow prisoners and guards, giving greater depth to the story. Evans isn't even the main focus of the portion set in the camp, but rather the people surrounding Darky Gardiner, an endlessly inventive prisoner who is able to obtain/steal almost anything and whose own courage and grit inspire and enrage his fellow soldiers. There's a love story here, as well, as Evans survives by remembering a brief affair and planning to return to her.

This is a complex and nuanced story, very well-told. It's a worthy Booker winner, examining memory and guilt, with a look at how both the perpetrators and victims of atrocity learn to live with their pasts.

How much fun is this? Cary Elwes writes a book about the making of The Princess Bride in which he reveals that it was all as much fun as it looks on screen and everybody joked around and liked each other and are all still friendly? There's not a lot of substance to As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride, but if you liked the movie, and especially if you can quote lines of dialogue in your head, then you'll enjoy this fun book.

>136 RidgewayGirl: I also appreciated all the comments by the other people who worked on the movie like Rob Reiner.

Yes, although an awful lot of them were about how awesome Cary is. Which is probably true, but it was funny.

>136 RidgewayGirl: As if I needed more incentive to read this book! I definitely need to get my hands on a copy ASAP!

>136 RidgewayGirl: I've been debating whether to read the print or audio version. Either way, it sounds like a lot of fun!

If Cary narrates there is no question!

Seriously. If Cary narrates, I'll listen despite having read the book. As You Wish strikes me a the perfect book to read over the holidays.

After reading Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder earlier this year, my expectations may have been too high for Hitler's Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields by Wendy Lower. In it, Lower sets out to look at women who were involved in the atrocities that took place in Eastern Europe. She examines women who served as bystanders, women who assisted the ones who did the actual killing, usually as secretaries and in other desk jobs, and women who crossed the line and took part in the killing, sometimes to the discomfort of the men around them. Lower did a great deal of research, taking advantage of archives that were opened to westerners only in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union. She combed through records, read diaries and published accounts, and interviewed those still living. The book follows the format of introducing the reader to several women with brief descriptions of their formative years and how they ended up in the east. Later chapters reintroduce the women and describe their experiences during the war, with a final chapter wrapping up with what they did after the war ended. Lower also looked briefly at why women might have participated in ways at loggerheads with how women are supposed to behave.

Lower looks at the career paths that suddenly opened up to women in the Third Reich. Despite the government's emphasis on women as mothers and housewives, the war opened up not only jobs in factories, but as nurses, teachers and secretaries. And as Germany sought to turn the countries it had invaded to the east into agricultural colonies, German women were needed as teachers to show ethnic Germans how to be properly German and to indoctrinate the children, nurses were needed to care for soldiers but also to continue the German program of euthanizing the handicapped and all the paperwork generated needed able secretaries. Ranking officers were also able to bring their families out to where they were stationed and where they were able to live a more luxurious lifestyle than had been available in Germany. With the exception of nurses, who were taught that euthanizing both injured soldiers and the handicapped relieved suffering, the women were not sent east to kill anyone, but teachers abandoned their charges to certain death when retreat was called, secretaries typed and passed on killing orders as well as determined who would be added in the lists of people to be killed or sent to camps, and the wives and girlfriends of officers not only witnessed the activities of the men around them, but they sometimes took part, either at the urging of their partners or on their own initiative.

The format of breaking up each woman's story and placing each fragment far from the others in the book, as well as the number of women she followed had the effect of lessening the impact of each biography, and in forcing the author, given the size of the book, into keeping each story brief. It didn't help that her views on the women shone through in the writing. Here are monsters, she says, come look at the monstrous women. Adjectives are inserted where the actions and attitudes of the women needed no modifiers, and descriptions seem to be cherry-picked so as to make a point. In the wake of recent work to understand how ordinary people could take part in wholesale murder, this book feels like a return to the idea of Nazis being special, extra-evil villains. Given that she is at pains to explain that the women she chose were ordinary women who went east mostly as a way to earn a little more money or because they had no choice, this emphasis feels misguided. Still, the enormous amount of research she did makes this an interesting book, even if it raised more questions than it answered.

Hitler's Furies in intriguing, but it also sounds like a difficult, possibly very disturbing read as well.

I also enjoyed your review of The Narrow Road to the Deep North. I've been wanting to read this, as well as several of the other Booker nominees from this year. I wonder if this will make it onto the 2015 Tournament of Books list.

I agree. Hitler's Furies sounds like an interesting read, but not one to read in the winter when it's easy enough to get depressed. Shame though that she went adjective happy. Writing on such extreme topics seems to be stronger when the author doesn't use a lot of adjectives. The bare facts speak for themselves. - I was reading an essay by Orwell on politics and the English language last night, so that subject is on my mind. He proved that sometimes the more you write, the less you say.

Paulina, Lower doesn't go into descriptions of the acts. In that, it's an easier read than Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin and a more comfortable read, since she sees the women as very different from us. I think that lets us off the hook. In Bloodlands, Snyder wanted to both make those enormous numbers feel real, but also to have the reader see that the people who made the monstrous system run were people like any other people, even us. Which is by far a more terrifying idea than the idea that there were once a bunch of really evil people doing evil things.

Exactly, Katie! Orwell would have thrown the book across the room. I couldn't, as it was an ebook from the library, read on my iPad. But she did things like using the word "agitator" when "member" would have worked just as well, and then added adjectives like "loudmouth" to the description. It turned the person, who was only present for a sentence or two, from an ordinary party member fulfilling his role in membership recruitment into a cartoon villain. He was also given an unkind physical description. And that was one instance in the introduction. After awhile I wondered if all Nazis were as easy to spot as the propaganda cartoons they were putting out at the time indicated how easy it was to spot a Jewish person. What happened was horrific. It speaks for itself.

Alan Cumming was scheduled to tape an episode of Who Do You Think You Are?, a British television show in which celebrities delve into their family trees for interesting stories. In Cumming's case, the show was to focus on his maternal grandfather, who his mother had last seen when she was six and who had died under mysterious circumstances while serving as a policeman in Malaysia. Just before the filming began, however, his brother gave him some startling news; his father was claiming that Cumming was not his son.

Not My Father's Son is the story of the emotionally difficult time, when Cumming had to talk to the abusive father he had very little contact with, take a DNA test and deal with all the ramifications of this sudden news, all while filming the story of his grandfather. Cumming also goes back to his childhood to describe his difficult childhood, where the entire family was held hostage to his father's temper and how he finally came to terms with it all. This should be another "misery memoir," but Cumming is too optimistic and upbeat for that, so that the book never bogs down into anything approaching self-pity. Instead, it's an honest look at both his own upbringing and the life of his grandfather.

This book is already on my tbr list but your review makes me want to push it up to the front of the pile.

>147 RidgewayGirl: >148 VivienneR: Same here!

>147 RidgewayGirl: - You're the second person I know to review it favorably. Love him as an actor so will have to add this to my list.

>147 RidgewayGirl: I've seen the book mentioned, but I never added it to my ever-growing TBR list. I think it's going on there now.

ETA: My public library has it! YAY!

The Last Dead Girl is a prequel to the series by Harry Dolan that began with Very Bad Things. It is, at heart, a classic crime thriller. David Malone meets a beautiful woman one night and ends up spending ten days with her. She's living in a run-down duplex with the landlady on the other side of the thin walls, but they're happy together. They've both kept some information back from the other person, him that he's actually engaged and Jana's is her obsession with the case of a man who may have been wrongly imprisoned for the murder of his wife and the reasons for her interest. Before their relationship can develop further, however, he finds her murdered. She had complained about feeling watched and now David is determined to find out who killed her. Complicating things is the detective assigned to the case, who coincidentally also led the case Jana was looking into and who may or may not be a little crooked, or who is at least hiding something.

Dolan is respectful of the genre, not really breaking new ground, but he handles the twists and turns of the plot with ease. Parts are a little far-fetched, but that's standard for the genre and the dramatic conclusion was really well done; I thought he'd gotten lazy in the last few chapters, but he pulled the whole thing off. I'm not sure I entirely buy the motivations of the dead girl of the title, but the author did go to some effort to make her a strong, resourceful character and not just a trigger for the main character's adventures. In the end, that may be why I enjoy Dolan's novels; he clearly sees each of his characters, no matter how small their role, as fully rounded people, which makes for enjoyable reading.

So, I only have a few books to go to finish my challenge, which is entirely doable as long as I stick to books that fit the remaining categories instead of adding to the categories that are already full, like with the above book.

Kids, Cary Elwes does indeed narrate the audiobook - along with Rob Reiner, Christopher Guest, Carol Kane,... It should be excellent! And, Alan Cumming also narrates his audiobook too. With those two and Amy Poehler's Yes Please, that will make 3 books that I have not only read but also listened to! (Well, I'm working on the audiobooks still, but it will be true soon enough!)

As even the most earnest student longs for graduation, the most faithful employee yearns for retirement, so Martha Hedges looked forward to widowhood. She would not by word or deed have attempted to hasten such an outcome; this is not a murder story. On the contrary, she was a devoted wife who lived in loving concord with a genuinely good husband. Being, in her shy and quiet way, a devout woman, she expected eventually to join Harold in Heaven for all eternity; but she counted on a nice long vacation first.

Were John Cheever to have had a twin sister who also wrote short stories, and had that imaginary sister spent time as a child in the loving care of her aunts, Dorothy Parker and Dawn Powell, she might write like Mary Ladd Gavell, the author of a single slim book of short stories. I Cannot Tell a Lie, Exactly: And Other Stories is a collection of wonderfully written stories that combine both depth and heart, while avoiding sentimentality and regard life with an eye for the subtle humor. Gavell died unpublished; it was only when a single short story (The Rotifer) was published in a trade magazine as a tribute to her, that she was discovered. The few stories she did write are sublime. My favorite is Baucis, which begins with the above paragraph. Gavell's stories concern the domestic; a child taking the school bus, an older couple caring for her mother as she dies, another couple on the search for antiques in New England, and they are pitch perfect. I'll be holding on to my copy because I know that I'll want to reread this more than a few times.

Although I'm not normally a short story reader, your opening paragraph has me interested enough to take a BB on this one.

Tantalizing review!

That paragraph definitely hooked me. Will have to search this one out.

Gavell is good. Here's another taste:

The water in Las Altas has a phenomenally low bacteria count, and tastes as though it would be good for a torpid liver. The taste is presumably compounded of salt, iodine, sulphur, and various other minerals in which the Gulf Coast of Texas is rich; and the absence of bacteria indicates that bacteria have more sense than commonly given credit for. One day it will occur to some thoughtful and enterprising Las Altan to found a spa and bottling works, and he will get rich; in the meantime the natives toss the stuff down without giving it a second thought, retain their teeth to an ancient age, and come back from journeys with word that water other places has no taste to it.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a semi-autobiographical YA novel by Sherman Alexie, telling the story of Arnold, who lives on a reservation in the Pacific Northwest. When he's issued a textbook and sees that his mother had also used it, thirty years earlier, he decides that he has to attend a better school, a predominantly white school in a rural town thirty miles from home. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian tells the story of his freshman year, with the conflict he feels on leaving and the struggle to find a place in a school that, at best, considers him an oddity and, at worst, is openly racist. But this is anything but a grim story. It's about a fourteen year old boy, after all, so there's lots about girls, and masturbation and basketball, and it's illustrated with Arnold's drawings, cartoons and sketches. I'll be setting this book out where my son can find it, as I think he'll like Arnold, whose life is so much more difficult than his. Alexie's not afraid to portray life on a reservation as it is and he's not afraid to explain why it's so bleak, but he's also quick to show the love that exists and the vibrant community that has everyone looking out for everyone else.



Ian McEwan's latest novel, The Children Act, returns to the themes of Enduring Love, while adding a layer of "ripped from the headlines" type of story. Fiona's a family court judge, and often has to deal with difficult and morally cloudy situations. She was the justice who wrote the decision on a case of Siamese Twins and that case has preoccupied her since. She's handed an emergency case, of a seventeen year old Jehovah's Witness who is refusing the blood transfusion that would save his life, just as her marriage crumbles.

This is a slender book, and it delves into many aspects of family law, all the various and tawdry ways that families fall apart, while also dealing with how Fiona reacts to her husband's actions and the impact on her of the actions of a young man. While McEwan is an able writer, and The Children Act is a book that is hard to put down, it's scope and brevity reduce the impact of the various themes and plot lines. Much that deserved more attention was sketched in. There were several novels' worth of material here, or at least one very meaty one, and even McEwan's adept handling couldn't make more than an outline of many of the issues he touches on.

I'm over on the number of books I'd planned to read, but still need to read three to complete all of my categories. I'll be plugging away until the final moment, especially if I continue to be waylaid by books that don't fit the categories that still need to be filled.

>159 RidgewayGirl: "I'm over on the number of books I'd planned to read, but still need to read three to complete all of my categories."

If necessary, you could consider "stretching" the category definition to fill them with your current reads. Kudos for going over the goal.

Vivienne, it would be quite a stretch. The Germany category could be Germany and also a few books with dogs in them. The RandomCAT category could be RandomCAT and this book about Alan Cumming. I'll just read ones that fit as I have time and if I don't make it, I start with a new challenge on January first anyway!

Yes, I see the problem, Kay. At this stage I'm thinking more about what I'll read in January. I hope the Alan Cumming book will be one - there are only two more holds ahead of me at the library.

I'm leaving tomorrow morning for a very long day of travel to SC. Of course, the most pressing and vital issue is which books? I only want to take two, because I want there to be plenty of reasons to buy books while I'm there. I've decided on Rain Dogs by Sean Doolittle because he's an author who always keeps me reading, my copy is a mass market paperback and I can pass it on to my brother. I've been reading a book in German and I'll bring that. It's good and I read so slowly that it doesn't matter if there are delays. I won't run out of book.

Much more thought put into the books than the wardrobe.

>163 RidgewayGirl: Much more thought put into the books than the wardrobe.

Yep. Same here! I'm travelling tomorrow as well and have to deliberate on which books to bring. Clothes? I'll just throw a bunch of them in the suitcase and call it done.

Hope you have a good trip!

I hope you have a good flying day tomorrow with no delays. (Unless, of course, you need one to finish a book.)

Happy travels! Hopefully you have lots of reading time with good books.

>163 RidgewayGirl: & >164 rabbitprincess: Enjoy your journeys. Christmas is always an exciting time to travel.

Have a good trip and I hope you get lots of reading done! I was happy to see your review of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian. It reminded me that it's been lingering on my shelf and I should pick it up. My daughter had read it earlier and said she liked it very much.

Have a great trip!!!

Have a wonderful Christmas, Kay. I am heading out on Boxing Day to go and visit my family in Victoria, my books are already packed!

Hope you have good flights and a good time trip! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Just dropping by to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful year ahead. I'm looking forward to all the book bullets in 2015!

Merry Christmas and a happy new year!

Thank you, all, and Happy Holidays! I have my new laptop, which will never be left alone with a glass of water and The Bad Cat. My Dad gave me a bluetooth keyboard that works with my phone and my ipad, so that I will be better prepared next time.

Three books read. That's a long flight, y'all. So reviews due for The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell, In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson and Yes Please by Amy Poehler, which was an excellent book to read on a plane.

I'm looking forward to going up to my Mother-in-laws tomorrow, where there will be plenty of time to set up my 2015 Challenge thread.

A belated Merry Christmas, Kay, and I'm so happy that you had a safe and uneventful yet reading-ful flight! Here's to an excellent 2015!

In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson tells the story of William Dodd's first year as ambassador to Germany, when Hitler first took power. Dodd was a university professor looking for a quiet post where he could work on his book and enjoy a year with his family together. His daughter, Martha, was escaping from an impulsive marriage and looking for a bit of fun. Before Dodd took the post, he was warned about the exaggerated stories coming out of Germany and he was eager to work with the new Nazi government, feeling that they would temper their actions as they got used to governing. So things went somewhat differently than anticipated.

The single thing that struck me about this book was how unwilling people were to see what was happening, how quick they were to dismiss the stories and how invested everyone was in maintaining the status quo. What Jewish people claimed was happening was easily brushed aside by comfortable American tourists who didn't see anything unpleasant in their visits to tourist attractions. Martha Dodd was able to dismiss the occasional unpleasant sight because the nice SS officers were so polite and blond.

Each of David Mitchell's novels are different, from straight-forward coming of age, to historical tales to speculative fiction. In The Bone Clocks, he melds several genres together into a book that begins as a coming of age novel and ends as dystopian fiction. The middle's hard to characterize. The entirety is a lot of fun; a complex story that constantly shape-shifts.

The Bone Clocks begins and ends with Holly Sykes, whom we meet as a teenager running away from home after a fight with her mother. She intends to move in with the older boyfriend her mother disapproves of, but when that doesn't work out, she's determined not to return, although she does miss her little brother. Holly is perhaps the only truly "ordinary" character in this unusual book and it's her presence that anchors the happenings which follow, as people and event cycle around her. This is an impossible book to characterize, but I can say that it is a fantastic, thought-provoking experience that I'm still thinking about.

>177 RidgewayGirl: I'm glad you liked Bone Clocks. It was one of my top 5 for the year. It's a book that stays with you.

It's on my top reads for the year, as well. It was fantastic!

I really do need to read something by David Mitchell at some point soon.

Glad to see the positive comments about The Bone Clocks. I've got it on hold at the library. I've only read one David Mitchell, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, but since then, I've been wanting to read more.

Paulina, there is a character from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet that makes an appearance in The Bone Clocks.

>182 RidgewayGirl:: Well, that should be interesting, given the different settings!

The Bone Clocks would certainly fit the genre-bender square of the BingoDog. It combines several genres, including fantasy and dystopia.

I keep meaning to give David Mitchell a try.

hailelib, he's really, really good.



Faced with a day of travel, I ended up reading Amy Poehler's memoir. It was a good choice. Yes Please is episodic and funny, with bursts of honesty and lists and pictures to break things up. Poehler sounds like a great person to hang out with; genuinely warm, very funny and with an edge to her. She's not a natural with the book form and stretches of her memoir drag or end up being too busy saying nice things about everyone to be interesting, but other parts, especially those about her childhood, were a lot of fun to read. Similar in tone to Tina Fey's Bossypants, this isn't as good, but it might be worth picking up if you're a fan.

Sean Doolittle writes intelligent thrillers with complex and very human protagonists. In Rain Dogs, Tom Coleman, an ex-journalist mourning the death of both his daughter and his marriage, has inherited a small outdoor outfitters that includes a campground, rafts and kayaks, and an employee he doesn't really need. He's working hard to drink himself to death, but moving back within driving distance of his parents and an old girlfriend isn't making this easier. Nor is the explosion of an old cabin a few miles away that Tom suspects was meth-related, although the sheriff isn't handling it as such.

This was a fun, fast-paced book for a busy time of the year. It's not The Cleanup or Lake Country, but even at less than his best, Doolittle is worth reading.

Well, that's it for me this year. See you over on my new thread, if you're interested.

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