HIGHLIGHTS OF AFRICA

Wildebeest crossing in the Maasai Mara--those are hippos in the foreground. They seemed to enjoy the show--I swear they sounded like they were laughing.




Our Tsavo West leopard. I think he's aiming for a starring role on Animal Planet.

Yes, I've been completely delinquent about this.

Sorry.

Since I blogged about Kenya in-depth after my first trip last year, I thought I'd focus on new things I learned this time around.

1. Travelling with one 8-year-old girl is more expensive than travelling with both of her older brothers combined. And it involves looking at a whole lot more jewelery. And stuffed animals.

2. If you want good service while travelling, take a child. Not a baby or toddler (they strike fear into the heart of every other traveller in the vicinity) and not a teenager or near-teen (they mostly look monumentally bored), but an in-between, cute-as-a-bug chatty 3rd-grader. I've never seen so many smiling flight attendants and passport control officers and customs officers. It took us a while to get through immigration at JFK--not because of long lines--but because everyone wanted my daughter to tell them about Africa. (Little did they know that once started talking, she's almost impossible to stop.)

3. A closed window probably won't make a lot of difference against a leaping hippo. At Tsavo West (the oldest national park in Kenya), we drove very near a river and stopped to take photos of half a dozen hippos in the water. While engaged in this innocent pursuit, a hippo came seemingly out of nowhere and--I swear--leaped over an expanse of river to join his fellows. Startled does not begin to cover my feelings. Panicked is slightly nearer. We then drove to the other side of the river to get a different view and I rolled down the truck window to take a close-up of one hippo that was staring me down. It spooked me slightly. For all I knew, this was the same leaping hippo from fifteen minutes before. How did I know he wasn't calculating the distance between his position and mine? So I rolled up the window. Which is when I realized that if a 2-ton hippo decides to crash-land on my car, a window--closed or not--isn't going to make the slightest bit of difference.

4. Babies. Lots and lots of babies. Giraffes and zebras and wart hogs and various antelopes from impala to topi. Call me sentimental, but there's not much cuter than a baby giraffe peeking around a tree at you (and still, naturally, taller than the car we were in.)

5. Leopards. One of the Big 5 that I didn't see last year. I made up for it this year. In the Maasai Mara we tracked down a mother and her two cubs early one morning. We watched the cubs playing in a tree for ten minutes while mama patrolled the ground. The cubs were perfectly adorable (see Babies entry above), especially as they would swing down various branches and then scramble back up the main trunk.

6. And one more leopard. As we drove down the red-dirt road in Tsavo West one afternoon, we were looking for Marker 25 that would tell us how far to a particular spot. We found the marker all right. With a leopard lying on top of it. This is very rare. Leopards are nocturnal, you see, and generally prefer trees. But this leopard was just lying on the marker like some kind of exotic house cat. We stopped the truck not more than ten feet from him and he (or possibly she) posed for us. Really. We've got the leopard lying, sitting, looking at us, looking over its shoulder, stretching, playing with its tail. I've even got a photo of my daughter next to the window with the leopard just feet beyond. (A closed window--in this case, a big help.) When we finally started the truck and began driving slowly away, the leopard jumped down and walked next to us in the grass for five or ten minutes. A definite once-in-a-lifetime experience.

7. The wildebeest migration. Every year, between about September and November, more than a million wildebeest migrate in a big circle through the Serengeti plains. They cross from Tanzania in the south into the Maasai Mara, eat every blade of grass in their way, and then wander back home. (As a side note--apparently wildebeests can live between 15-20 years, so some of them having been doing this migration for a long time. You'd think they'd have it better organized by the fifteeneth or sixteenth time.)

You see, wildebeests are not incredibly smart. They're also not incredibly beautiful, but that's another topic. Wildebeests will congregate at one side of the river they plan to cross and then mill around. For hours. While more and more wildebeests arrive from behind until eventually I kept expecting that one would just shoved in. What usually happens is that a zebra goes first. I don't know why. But once the first set of hooves hits the water, it's like an electric shock to the rest. They just go crazy, streaming into and over the river as quicky as they can.

And quickly is a good idea. There are crocodiles in them there waters. It's a good bet that some of those wildebeests are going to get crocced (as I endearingly heard it called.) So what do the tourists do? We sit around in our cars for hours, watching the milling wildebeests, wishing we could get out of the safari vehicle and shove one into the river ourselves, and then we find ourselves cheering when a croc takes one down. There's something about sitting in the sun for two hours (especially when one requires a restroom) that makes one quite bloodthirsty.

Not that there was any blood to see. Mostly what we saw of the crocodiles were the enormous and sudden explosions of water that marked one snatching a wildebeest out of the line. We did see one dead wildebeest floating downstream (our driver said that crocs will kill a bunch and let them float away then track down their bodies to eat later--it's emergency preparedness is what it is.)

But the vast majority of wildebeests made it across. There were a couple small ones that got lost, coming up farther south on the shore than their comrades and not able to figure out a way to join the rest. And then there were a bunch who, once they reached the other side, jumped back into the river AND SWAM BACK THE WAY THEY CAME! Honestly, it's hard not to think of them as stupid when they do that. I mean, they just survived a dangerous crossing. Now they're tempting fate (and crocodiles) by doing it again?

It was an amazing sight. None more so than the moment when it just stopped. As suddenly as it had begun, the line broke and the remaining tens of thousands of wildebeests on our side of the river went back to milling around. Personally, I think they just forgot what they were doing. Who knows how long it took them to remember. For ourselves, we had seen our crossing.

And I really, really needed a restroom.

AUGUST READS





THE SPARROW/Mary Doria Russell: A re-read for book club. I've reviewed this here before, so will only say that, after re-reading, it's still one of my favorite books ever.



A WALK IN THE WOODS/Bill Bryson: More funny travel writing. In this book, Bryson decides to hike the Appalachian trail. From worrying about bears to the joys of finding a shower after days on the trail, this book almost--I stress, almost--made me want to hike the trail. But then I remembered that any exertion beyond yoga is not for me, not to mention camping anywhere except a luxury tent in the Masai Mara. So when the (temporary) urge hits me to experience the great outdoors, I'll just pick up this book again.



RUINS OF GORLAN/THE BURNING BRIDGE/THE ICE-BOUND LAND/John Flanagan: My oldest son got me into the Ranger's Apprentice series, of which these are the first three books. Will is a castle ward until he turns 15 and is apprenticed to a ranger named Holt. Rangers in this world remind me a lot of Rangers in Tolkien's world: just think of Aragorn's many skills when we first meet him as Strider. But the story is interesting in its own right, from the first book's evil warlord coming out of banishment to the second book's sacrificial stand that saves the kingdom at the expense of Will's freedom to the third book's search for Will and the king's daughter.



THE WATER'S LOVELY/Ruth Rendell: I love everything she writes, under this name or that of Barbara Vine. In this psychological suspense stand-alone, the Sealand family is at the heart of the twists and turns. Did Heather Sealand drown her stepfather, Guy, twenty years ago? Is it her sister's responsibility to let Heather's fiance know what might have happened? Beyond the main tension, there are wonderful subplots and secondary characters, full of their own wishes and plans and romantic entanglements. The surprises of this book continue to the very last page.

ECLIPSE/Stephenie Meyer: The third in the TWILIGHT series. Bella is finishing up her senior year, drawing closer to the deadline she's given herself for being changed into a vampire. Edward is still demanding she marry him before he'll change her. And Jacob Black, her werewolf friend, wants more than friendship. Throw in a psychotic vampire still on her trail and a supsicious father, and Bella's got all the trouble she can deal with. Lots of people didn't like this book. Me, I'm willing to overlook flaws for a writer/series that can pull me so thoroughly into another world and make me feel like I'm a teenager in love again.

THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING/Joan Didion: The title refers to the first year after the death of Didion's husband. She talks about grief and mourning (and the difference between the two), as well as the nature of marriage and the power of information and the limits of our control. I recommend this highly to anyone who's lost someone they love. Though Didion keeps her own experience veiled to a degree, she provides an opening for others to recognize the commonality of grief.

THE MEMORY-KEEPER'S DAUGHTER/Kim Edwards: This was a book that never quite got off the ground for me. The premise is intriguing (a doctor in the 1960s delivers his own twins on a stormy night and, when he realizes the girl has Down's Syndrome, sends her away and tells his wife she died.) The girl is raised by the nurse who took her and the story goes back and forth between the two families. I didn't really feel that anything happened, however, that it was just a very long character study that occurs over decades. Not my type of story.

GENTLEMEN AND PLAYERS/Joanne Harris: A wonderful British novel about St. Oswald's, a fictional boys' school, and the mysterious newcomer who wants to bring it down forever. Only Roy Straitley, a teacher of the old school and dedicated Classicist, can stop the destruction. This was my first novel by Harris, but it won't be my last. Told in alternating chapters by Straitley and the school's mysterious enemy, we learn as we go the motive behind the mischief. But is the enemy who you think it is? I'll admit that I was wrong--and happily so, since I love a writer who can surprise me.

THE YOUNG MASTER/Sheldon Novick: A biography of Henry James in his early years. Beginning with his family and ending with the publicaiton of PORTRAIT OF A LADY, this biography is easier to read than most of James's novels :) Not a book I'd have picked up for fun, but my birthmother did her doctoral thesis on THE GOLDEN BOWL and this book belonged to her.

I'm not an extrovert. Ever.

But I'm even less of one when in a strange city.

Two weeks ago today, I was in New York City with my 8-year-old daughter. We were on our way to Kenya to visit my parents and had a 12-hour layover. She wanted to see the Museum of Natural History. So off we went in a taxi.

The museum was great (except for our heavy carry-on baggage we had with us--I didn't see the bag check on the ground floor of the museum until we were leaving.) We even stepped across the street so we could say we had been in Central Park. I even took pictures, something I generally leave to my husband. (As I've discovered, though, taking the pictures means I don't have to be in the pictures.)

Then we took a taxi back to JFK airport. By this time, the allergies I'd left home with were in full swing, my shoulders were aching from carrying my bag around, and we still had two 8-hours flights in front of us before we made it to Nairobi. Long story short, I fell asleep in the back of the taxi.

The good news is that I woke up on my own shortly before reaching JFK. I mean, I can't think of too many things more humiliating than drooling all over a cab driver who's trying to wake me up. So I woke up, pulled myself together, and that's when I discovered that my cab driver liked to talk. Poor man, he'd been stuck with me and a child for the last hour. I'm sure there were many things he would have liked to say, but he had to confine himself to the essentials as we drove into the airport.

"Do you kmow the worst part of driving a cab in New York?"

"What?" (I'm not only introverted, I'm not terribly original in conversation.)

"No public bathrooms."

So there you have it. If you're like me, you're now pondering just what might be under the drivers' seats in those yellow cabs.

It's The First Day Of School.

Not just any first day of school. It's the one I've been waiting for four more than fourteen years now. The one that took all four of my children, delivered them into the hands of their teachers, and won't bring them home until afternoon.

No more toddlers. No more preschool. No more kindergarten that gets out at noon.

Today, my baby started 1st grade.

As I told my 14-year-old last night: "It's totally worth getting old for the payoff of having you all grow up as well."

No, I didn't cry today. Only once has school brought me to tears. (Yes, it was that cliched day when my oldest child started kindergarten. In my defense, I was 7 months pregnant, we'd just moved states, my husband had a new job, and we were living my parents while we built a house.) I love school. I love schedules and early bedtimes and the excitement of hearing about new teachers and new friends.

And I love the solitude.

Excuse me while I go revel. And possibly dance. It's going to be a good year.

July Reads



I'M A STRANGER HERE MYSELF/Bill Bryson: Not exactly a travel book, but a collection of columns Bryson wrote for a London newspaper upon moving back to the U.S. after twenty years in England. He takes on everything from the different vocabulary needed for going to the hardware store to the love affair Americans have with their cars to the unique holiday that is Thanksgiving. Like everything Bryson writes, hysterically funny. He could make me laugh if he wrote the Yellow Pages.



THE HONOURABLE SCHOOLBOY/John le Carre: I had quite a thing for le Carre's spy novels years ago. I've recently rediscovered him and am enjoying filling in some of the blanks in his work. This novel deals with a British irregular spy who's called back into service to help Britain recover from a devasatating defection. Demoralized and led by George Smiley, the British service has a plan to snatch an important asset out of China. Set in the last days of the Vietnam War, from the killing fields of Cambodia to bustling Hong Kong, Jerry Westerby finds himself caught between his assignment and his instincts. If you like spy novels in the slightest, John le Carre is the best.



LIRAEL and ABHORSEN/Garth Nix: The final two in the Sabriel trilogy. Sixteen years after the events in Sabriel, evil is on the move again. Lirael, a daughter of the seers known as the Clayr, doesn't have the gift of sight. But it seems she might have other gifts in compensation. When she is forced to leave the glacier home of the Clayr, Lirael can't imagine how far her travels will take her or the path that has chosen her. ABHORSEN continues immediately where LIRAEL ends, so it's a good thing we had both books in the house so I could read them straight through.

I CAPTURE THE CASTLE/Dodie Smith: An oldie, written post WWII, set post WWI, about a charmingly poor British family--writer father who hasn't worked for years, former artist-model stepmother, schoolboy brother, and two sisters who are just at the age to be thinking of their seemingly non-existent futures. But fate intervenes, in the form of two young American men, and it appears all will be well in fairytale ending. But not everything goes as planned. The true charm of this novel is the narrator, the younger sister, who captures the reader from the moment she opens the story sitting with her feet in the kitchen sink.

Also Read:

EVERYTHING'S EVENTUAL/Stephen King/short stories
NIGHT TRAIN TO MEMPHIS/Elizabeth Peters/one of my favorite mystery re-reads
SICKENED/Julie Gregory/memoir
THE WARRIOR HEIR/Cinda Williams Chima/YA fantasy
HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE/JK Rowling/re-read of book six in anticipation of . . .
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS/JK Rowling/this needs a post of its own

HARRY POTTER WEEK

Loved the Order of the Phoenix film.

Am re-reading Half-Blood Prince.

And on Saturday, it will all be over.

Yes, I am a geek. No, I don't care.

Here are my thoughts and predictions on Book 7, trying to fill my hours before I can wait in line for the midnight release of the book.



Dumbledore: Alive or Dead?

Dead. Definitely dead. But not entirely gone. No, I don’t believe he’ll be Gandalf, rising into a new life. He’ll be more like Obi-Wan, providing moments of help along the way. How will he do it? I expect to see Dumbledore’s help through one of his 3 “P”s: portrait, pensieve, and/or phoenix.


Snape: Good or Evil?

Good. Not that he and Harry will ever share a summer cottage together (as Dumbledore said, “Some wounds go too deep for the healing”), but Severus Snape was not a Death Eater in disguise rejoicing at the opportunityto kill Dumbledore. Like Harry, I am Dumbledore’s man through and through. Unlike Harry, I don’t have a personal history of abuse from Snape, so I am free to see the clues to Snape’s behavior. His Unbreakable Vow with Narcissa Malfoy was not his first. Why did Dumbledore always trust Snape? Not merely because he has to believe the best in everyone. No, I believe when Snape left the Death Eaters (over Voldemort’s hunt for Lily Potter) that Dumbledore placed Snape under an Unbreakable Vow to follow his orders. It’s the only explanation I can see that explains Dumbledore’s unwavering trust. Dumbledore trusted Snape. That’s good enough for me.

Harry: Horcrux or Not?

Harry is a horcrux, unbeknownst to both him and Voldemort. The scar is the representation. (We all know that Avada Kedavra doesn’t leave a mark—the scar is a symbol of Voldemort’s unwitting transfer of part of his soul to Harry the night he tried to kill him.) When I first finished Book 6 and thought of this, I was devastated, believing that Harry would have to die to destroy the piece of Voldemort’s soul within him. Now I don’t think so. Both the ring and the diary—the two horcruxes that have been destroyed thus far—continue to exist, albeit in broken or blank form. Harry is a horcrux. He will have to destroy the piece of Voldemort within him. When he does, I predict that he won’t die—but he will lose his magic. That’s the great sacrifice. Harry will choose to give up the power behind his happiest memory—the moment Hagrid told him he was a wizard.


Who Is RAB?

The easier answer of all: Regulus Black. (Quite possibly Regulus Alphard Black, the middle name being found on the Black family tapestry at 12 Grimmauld Place.) How did he find the locket horcrux? I don’t know, but I think it was Kreacher who helped him retrieve it—maybe drinking that horrible potion that weakened Dumbledore is what sent Kreacher over the edge once and for all. And the real locket is almost certainly the one referred to in Book 5 as being in the Black family home. Is it still there? If not, than Harry will have to look to Kreacher and/or Mundugus to locate it.


People/Items/Oddities we’ll see again

Peter Pettigrew. He owes Harry a life debt. We’ll see the payoff in Book 7.

The arch where Sirius died. (Yes, Sirius too is definitely dead.) But the arch will return and may even provide Harry a means to see Sirius once more.

Bellatrix Lestrange. Neville isn’t finished with her yet. (And yes, it will be Neville who faces Bellatrix. As much as Harry wants her for what she did to Sirius, Neville wants her more. This one is Neville’s fight.)

Dumbledore’s famous “gleam of triumph”. When Voldemort used Harry’s blood to regenerate in Book 4, Dumbledore obviously thought that critically important. The power of blood, the power of Lily’s love . . . this is one I don’t have a prediction for. I don’t know how it will help Harry. But it will.


Mortality Rate

JK Rowling said while writing Book 7 that she had given a reprieve to a character she thought would die and killed two others she hadn’t previously planned on.

Who got the reprieve? I think it’s Snape.

Who got the axe? Hmm, this one is harder because there are so many vulnerable people. I hate the thought of it being Arthur or Molly Weasley, though it’s probable that at least one of them will die. Lupin is in the line of fire. Another teacher, a student . . . let’s face it, with Dumbledore’s death Rowling proved that no one is safe. I will go out on my hopeful limb and predict that the charmed circle (once three, now four) will survive: Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny.


After Voldemort

Rowling has said that she wrote the final chapter of Book 7 years ago and that it’s a wrap-up, a look into the future that tells everyone’s fate after the war. Here are my predictions:

Ron and Hermione marry (well, this one isn’t really hard—they’re obviously meant for each other. Rowling couldn’t be much clearer if they walked around with flashing neon lights proclaiming "Ron and Hermione Forever".) They will have a bunch of kids with lots and lots of bushy red hair.

Neville and Luna marry: this one is more wishful than supported by evidence, but I just love the thought of the children these two would produce. Believers in nargyls and the Rotfang Conspiracy, but not able to remember what those are from moment to moment :)

Hermione becomes the first Muggle-born Minister of Magic

Neville teaches Herbology at Hogwarts

Fred and George grow rich on Weasley Wizarding Wheezes

Harry marries Ginny, lives long and happily with her in the family he always wanted, and (this one is out on the shakiest of limbs) becomes Headmaster of Hogwarts in spite of the fact that he can no longer do magic


Certainty

In the end, only Jo Rowling knows for certain the details of what happens, how, and why. But there is one certainty. If I were a gambling woman, I'd bet on it.

Voldemort dies.

For seven books, it's been a fight between good and evil. Though the costs are high, good will triumph. Between Luke and Anakin, the emperor was killed. Thanks to both Frodo and Gollum, the ring was destroyed. No matter how twisting and painful the path, Harry defeats Voldemort.

I can't wait.

MEXICO, PART TWO

The Good

1. Chichen Itza and Tulum: We had a personal tour guide for these two Mayan ruins. Helaman was recommended to us by friends and we loved every minute of our long day with him. No taking kids on a big tour bus--we traveled in a 15-person van that let everybody sit where nobody else could touch them. Helaman has been a tour guide for more than 20 years and he made the sites much more interesting than they might have been. Okay, he couldn't do anything about the heat (and really, what were those ancient Maya thinking building in a steaming hot jungle?) But his stories were fascinating, his sense of history and culture was impeccable, and he had lots of fun with the kids. After Chichen Itza, we lunched at a wonderful buffet restaurant (you'd never have suspected the beautiful courtyard and restaurant from the building's facade) and then it was off to Tulum. This was a Mayan port, protected by a coral reef. There was only one way in and out of the reef, and apparently the Maya watched the Spanish and Portugese wreck ship after ship on it for more than twenty years. Tulum definitely wins for best setting of ancient ruins--not quite so claustrophobic as the jungle.

2. Hilton Iguana Club: My two youngest adored this for-kids-only program. They spent two full days learning to golf and touring the hotel (including the presidential suite) and doing a treasure hunt and playing with water balloons and painting shirts and gathering sea shells to make a picture frame . . . we'd only planned to put them in for one day, but they had so much fun they insisted on going back. (Honestly, it was their idea. It had nothing at all to do with the fact that with them safely looked after I could spend hours lying by the pool reading without interruption.)

3. Dolphins: We swam with the dolphins while the youngest watched and my husband took pictures. It was spectacular. I can't begin to tell you how much I enjoyed it. We were in a group of six, me and my three kids and two teenage girls, and we got to spend time with the dolphins swimming around us and through our group, petting them and feeling their incredibly smooth skin. We got to feed them and kiss them and do the foot-push (where you lay in a deadman's float and the dolphin pushes at your feet and sends you skimming across the water.) I'm so glad I did it. I'm not much of a get-in-the-water person, but this was one of the highlights of my life.

4. Food and beverages delivered right to your poolside cabana. Need I say more?

5. Eating as a family. This doesn't happen often with my husband's work schedule. We enjoyed each other immensely, from teenager to 1st-grader. Those are the moments for which we go on vacation . . . those memories of laughter and jokes and funny faces that help us get through the day to day stuff of life.


The Bad

1. Xcaret: We wanted to enjoy this ecological park. We really did. It's a cool concept--lots of native flora and fauna, beaches, a reproduction Mayan village, an evening show. But it was just not our day. We did enjoy the underground river, though it took our youngest a while to relax in his life jacket and realize he wasn't in imminent danger of drowning. (I mostly floated on my back through these caverns while he rode on top of my stomach.) But things went rapidly downhill from there. The park is huge and spread out and it was virtually impossible to follow the paths to where you wanted to go. (I think they're like Hogwarts castle, with the constantly-changing staircases.) We missed our first dolphin appointment because there were two dolphin pools (but only one was on the map--apparently you don't need to speak Spanish to get around, you need to be telepathic.) It was miserably hot and humid and there was no way on earth we were going to stick around until late that night when the bus would return. So we took a taxi home and made a vow--Never Break the Sabbath Day Again.

2. Taxis: I'm not sure I really mean for this to be under bad. More under, hmmm, adventurous? Dangerous? Take your life in your hands? Every single taxi we rode in went like this: Driver in driver's seat; dad in front passenger seat with daughter on his lap; two big boys and mom in the back with little boy on mom's lap. No question of seat belts. Some drivers were more adventurous than others. But hey! We're here, aren't we? And frankly, after having been in Kenya last summer, I can confidently state that these were not the most dangerous roads we've been on.

3. Coming home: Always the worst part of a trip. There's the long hours of waiting at airports and flights and wishing you could just apparate wherever you wanted. Then there's laundry. Lots and lots of laundry. And housecleaning. And cooking. And, you know, little things like having to make your own bed. And knowing that the vacation long looked forward to is now in the past.

We'll just have to start planning our next one.

JUNE READS

But only the good ones.

I just can't be bothered to write about the books I didn't think were great. I'll list titles at the end . . . because who knows what might grab someone else.

HONEYMOON IN PURDAH by Alison Wearing: Wearing is a Canadian woman who wants to visit Iran. Since it's the only place in the world she can't imagine traveling as a woman alone, she drags along her male roommate and, with a fake marriage license, the two of them spend several months in Iran as a honeymooning couple. This book made me wish I were that brave. They cross the border on a bus from Turkey and spend most of their time in small towns. They meet wonderful people who practically drag them off the streets to feed and house them. Wearing talks about the experience of being muffled in robes and veils and the religious strictures that the government imposes--but also talks about the corruption and tyranny of the last shah's regime. Mostly, I was left with a wonderful impression of the people and culture of Iran, so much more than we get in our news segments. Highly recommended.

THE KITE RUNNER by Khaled Hosseini: My sister-in-law gave me this for my birthday and I'm so glad she did! About a boy's childhood in Afghanistan during the last days of the monarchy, through his exile with his father to the United States when the Russians took over, and about his moving return trip during the Taliban regime to try and rescue an orphaned boy in Kabul. It is a gritty novel, it is not easy to read, but I found it well worth it. Though there is evil in this book, there is also good and forgiveness and beauty. I'm about to start Hosseini's second novel.

NIGHT by Eli Wiesel: For book club. "A slim volume of terrifying power"--that's what it says on the cover. It's true. A book I think everyone should read at least once, about Wiesel's time in concentration camps as a teenage boy. I'm going to give it to my fourteen-year-old to read this year, since Wiesel was just a little older than he was when the Jews of his town were rounded up.

ASKING FOR THE MOON by Reginald Hill: I've become a big fan of Hill's mystery novels with Andy Dalziel and Peter Pascoe. This is a collection of short stories featuring the pair, from their first encounter on the police force to their last adventure, some thirty years in the future when an astronaut is murdered during a moon landing. For Dalziel and Pascoe fans.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN IN HARRY POTTER 7? by Emerson Spartz: This is a collection of essays from the most well-known Harry Pottery website at mugglenet.com. With chapters like "Horcruxes", "Is Dumbledore Really Dead", and "Snape: Good or Evil", the book is a fun warm-up to the big even next week. Even contains a chart at the end with all the major and minor characters listed and giving odds of which of them will die. The only certainty they offer is this: It's a book about good and evil. Evil will not win. Voldemort will die. Everything else is up for grabs. I can't wait!

THE REBECCA NOTEBOOK by Daphne du Maurier: A volume of du Maurier's essays, including sketches of her childhood cousins, the boys for whom J.M. Barrie wrote Peter Pan; a remembrance of her father, actor Gerald du Maurier; and her love for the house she called Manderley in REBECCA. Also, as the title indicates, is a collection of her notes for REBECCA, the original outline for the novel, and the original opening she wrote. You can see how things changed as she wrote the novel and she gives background on the writing of it. A definite read for fans of du Maurier.

SABRIEL by Garth Nix: Straight from my 11-year-old's hands to mine. This first in a fantasy trilogy was recommended for my son by a friend of mine who's never steered me wrong before. (Thanks, Kate!) Sabriel's father has gone missing in the Old Kingdom, a place of magic and evil across a crumbling boundary wall from Sabriel's school. Now she must take up the tools of his trade: seven bells that have the power to control the dead and send them through the series of gates that will banish them completely from the human world. Necromancers and frozen princes and bewitched cats and a teenage girl trying to help her father--this book had it all.

OUT OF AFRICA by Karen Blixen: Took me right back to Kenya from the first paragraph. A wonderful picture of colonial East Africa after WWI. Maybe not as good for someone who hasn't been there, but having bought this book in the very sitting room of the house that was Karen Blixen's, I loved it.

SPEAK by Laurie Halse Anderson: For book club. Loved it. Powerful YA novel about a girl who's just starting high school under a cloud and gradually stops speaking. Melinda wants to vanish, but she's got an art teacher who keeps trying to get her to make a tree. A devastatingly accurate picture of high school power structures and the sufferings of the individual. I liked it so much that I bought another one of Anderson's, CATALYST, about a senior girl who's life is falling apart--from the fire at a neighbor's house to her rejection from the only college she applied to. Definite reads for my daughter when she gets older.

IN A SUNBURNED COUNTRY by Bill Bryson: The travel writer takes on Australia this time. How could you not love a book with this paragraph on just the third page? "This is a country that loses a prime minister and that is so vast and empty that a band of amateur enthusiasts could conceivably set off the world's first non-governmental atomic bomb on its mainland and almost four years would pass before anyone noticed. Clearly this is a place worth getting to know." He travels to every major city in Australia (there aren't many) and into the interior and along the empty coasts. He made me want to see it all, not just Sydney. Even though, as he says, "There are more things in Australia that will kill you than anywhere else."

Those that I read but don't particularly feel like talking about at length . . .

CONFESSIONS OF GEORGIA NICHOLSON by Louise Rennison
THE CUP OF GHOSTS by Paul Doherty
CONFESSIONS OF A TEEN SLEUTH by Chelsea Cain

Sigh. I was hoping this plan would cut down on my wordiness about what I read. That didn't work out. Face it, I'm a complete and utter bore when it comes to books :)

7 Books Revisited



Apparently, I am a cheater. Fine, apparently my pre-justification of anthologies was not sufficient. I can live with that. And yes, I did count as one two books that are separate. I am suitably chastened. I'm also still a bit punch-drunk from the post-travel exhaustion haze and have decided that's a good state in which to do a new list. (I like lists when I'm having a hard time writing anything because they give a nice structure. Also why I like mystery novels.)



I call it 7 Books I Will Never Read Again and Wish I Hadn't Read in the First Place.



1. AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner: Not a Faulkner fan. Or a Hemingway fan. Or a fan of much American literature of that period. This is the only book in my junior-year honors English class that I did not finish but instead resorted to Cliff Notes. Boring. Depressing. And hard to follow.


2. MOBY DICK by Herman Melville: I did actually read this one through for that same honors English class. Even the chapters on sperm oil and blubber. But again, not my type of ocean novel. (Do I have a type of ocean novel? Now I'm wondering. I suppose if I did it would involve a pirate an awful lot like Jack Sparrow or Will Turner.) Oddly, one of my favorite novels of the last few years is AHAB'S WIFE by Sena Jeter Naslund. Naslund takes a character who never appears in MOBY DICK and writes a fascinating novel that actually made me interested in Ahab as a person. No small feat.


3. THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV by Fyodor Dosteovsky: I read this because I love his novel CRIME AND PUNISHMENT. So I thought I'd like this one. I didn't. I have decided if I ever have a fit of Russian novel-reading insanity in the future, I will just re-read CRIME AND PUNISHMENT.


4. RED AZALEA by Anchee Min: We chose this for book club because it was on a library reading list and "it sounds interesting". It wasn't. About a young woman in China during the Cultural Revolution, I quickly tired of the in-depth discussion of her sexual affairs, with both men and women, and found the prose very hard going. Maybe it was the translation. But no translation could help the fact that I didn't like the girl at all. Which made me feel guilty, since the author was the girl in question. Fine. I admire her pluck and survival. I did not enjoy her recounting of her life. The first of only two book club books I haven't read to the end.


5. THE RED TENT by some woman I don't remember and I don't care enough to look up her name : The second book club book I didn't finish. We've decided "red" in the title is a sure killer for us. A great concept--telling the story of Jacob's daughter, Dinah, and her twelve brothers from her point of view--but poorly executed in my opinion. I thought Dinah was obnoxious and whiny and, although I'm hard to offend, about the time the sheep made an immoral appearance, I was out of there.

6. THE MURDER STONE by Charles Todd: I feel guilty about this one, because Charles Todd writes a great mystery series set in post-WWI England featuring an inspector haunted by the trenches. But it's a miracle I ever got to know and love Ian Rutledge, because this was the first Todd book I read and it's awful. Another one of those "sounds great" books that doesn't live up to its jacket copy. Its a standalone mystery with wooden characters, stilted dialogue, leaps of emotional logic that left me dizzy and an ending that I just flat-out could not believe. And it violates one of the great rules of mystery novels--it raises a critical question that's not only not answered, it's not even considered again. Fortunately, Inspector Rutledge is much more satisfying. I think Todd should stick to the series.

7. There are so many that could fill this last spot--probably most of them read in my teenage years and most of them so mercifully buried in my mind that I can't even recall titles. (Though it surely included titles along the line of HER DEADLY SECRET or LORD HAMILTON'S LOVER or YOU CHOOSE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT IN THIS DARK AND ROMANTIC TEENAGE ROMANCE.) But in honor of Harry Potter month, I'll go with the last book in a long-running YA series which I've blogged about before: THE SONS OF DESTINY by Darren Shan. The worst ending of a series I've ever read. I wish I had quit reading halfway through. It has so scarred me that I've been having nightmares this last week about reading the last Harry Potter book and hating it because it had nothing to do with what came before. But I trust Jo Rowling, my heart is in her hands, and I predict that HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS will help heal my series-ending wounds.

MEXICO

The family vacation to Cancun is history.

And can I just say, I didn't realize how bad a reputation I have for blithely ditching my children and going places alone until my own father emailed me from Kenya and said, "Who are you leaving the kids with?" Although my maternal qualities may be underdeveloped, this was one occasion where the entire family was present. For eight days. In adjoining hotel rooms. Meals, swimming, shopping, buses, bathrooms, airplanes . . . there we were, all six of us.

No wonder I'm so tired.

Traveling: My biggest worry was my youngest. Yes, he's almost six. No, he doesn't always act like it. And nothing makes me stress more than having a child melt down in public. As he's also prone to motion sickness (he's thrown up twice in the car in the last two months--thank you, Angie, for the bucket you gave me for my birthday), I was alert for any sign of trouble on the flight down. But he was a star. I tell you, give that kid a puzzle book or maze book, a pen, and he'll keep himself occupied for hours. Literally. Bless you, Highlights for Children :)

Hotel: We stayed at the Hilton Spa and Golf Resort on the south end of Cancun's hotel zone. The golfing might as well have been on another planet (honestly, who wants to golf in the full sun with 95% humidity?) but my husband and I did take advantage of a massage at the spa. Yes, we have a rough life. No, I do not apologize for it. The Hilton was beautiful, fabulous staff, great free breakfast every morning (there are perks to my husband's travel, one of which is that hotel chains throw themselves at him because he spends so much company money over the course of a year), and a the nicest pool I've ever seen. And I have seen some--Hawaii, Aruba, Dubai, Oman. The Cancun Hilton beats them all. It gradually descends to the beach in a series of rectangular shallow pools that cascade over blue tile steps (lots of fun to clamber up and down) until it gets to the half-circle shaped infinity pool. There's also a self-contained and very large children's pool that doesn't get deeper than two feet. Perfect for putting the two youngest in and not worrying. There's also a pool bar (which we took more advantage of than you would expect from a family that doesn't drink alcohol) and dozens of thatch-roofed cabanas with comfy lounge chairs underneath. The kicker of it all--the place never seemed to fill up. Certainly not the pool area, which was much quieter than our neighborhood pool ever is.

Food: My 8-year-old daughter's biggest fear about going to Mexico was that she would have to eat Mexican food. Hers are not adventurous taste buds. But in addition to the aforementioned breakfast (which included fresh fruit and a chocolate fountain--does breakfast get better?) we had wonderful meals, even outside the fairly enclosed element of the hotel. My favorite was the buffet near Chichen Itza. Everything from seafood paella to grilled tilapia. (And lots of fresh bread and spaghetti for the younger kids.) We also ate at places like Planet Hollywood and the Rainforest Cafe. Cancun is, after all, a big tourist town. But my favorite meal was at the beachfront Hilton restaurant called Mitachi. While the kids ate room service pizza (and the youngest broke a plate in the room which his 14-year-old brother had to clean up), my husband and I enjoyed Coconut shrimp Barbados style and warm rolls and New York filet and Chilean sea bass. With personal chocolate souffles to finish us off. Good thing the kids were with us so we couldn't eat like that every night.

Enough for today. Did I mention I still have mono? Had the blood test right before the trip and not only do I still have the active virus, I have it at the same level I had it in December. So apparently I haven't been lazy enough. I'm working to perfect that.

But one last tidbit for this entry: Our youngest boy learned a new favorite word in Mexico. He likes how it makes people laugh when he says it with just the right intonation and impish grin. We've trained him to use it as an answer.

Question: How was Mexico, youngest child?
Youngest child: Tequila!

SEVEN BOOKS


A recent discussion on DorothyL centered on a character from David Skibbins' Tarot Card mysteries. Warren Ritter is a former radical who doesn't want to be found by the government, and he's also bipolar. I haven't read the books yet, but apparently, in Warren's attempts to stay lost and be able to move easily around, he only owns 7 books at a time. This prompted a discussion on what 7 books DorothyL members would choose if they were in a similar position.

Some could not participate at all, finding the thought of only 7 books physically painful. Others thought it was cheating to include anthologies. I do not agree. After all, if the theory is to have 7 physical books that you can pick up and put in a backpack in one minute, than I can have as many books crammed into one physical volume as I can find, as long as I'm willing to bear the weight of the pack :)

Here's the 7 I would choose today. I don't guarantee I would choose the same 7 tomorrow. After all, you never know when a new book is going to come along and knock you senseless with its brilliance. (And for my purposes, I will not include scriptures. That takes us too dangerously into personal spiritual territory, which I would prefer to keep private.) Otherwise, these books are all single volumes that I have on my bookshelves at this moment.

1. THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: What's to add? Poetry, tragedy, comedy, history, characters . . . He'll never be equalled. Nor will his language.

2. THE COMPLETE NOVELS OF JANE AUSTEN: Another automatic for me. My daughter is named for two Jane Austen heroines. I could re-read her novels ad infinitum.

3. THE LORD OF THE RINGS: Frodo, Sam, Aragorn, Gandalf, Faramir, Eowyn . . . I read this again every few years and I never get bored. Even though I have large portions of it memorized (particualrly anything to do with Eowyn), I would want these books forever.

4. GAUDY NIGHT by Dorothy L. Sayers: The Golden Age creator of Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane, Sayers' best book (in my opinion) is this one. Harriet returns to her Oxford college to find a poison-pen at work. There isn't a single murder in this book, but it can't be beat for atmosphere, tension, philosophical questions on marriage, women's careers, academic integrity, and ethics. Plus Peter and his Harriet finally confront their relationship head-on.

5. FALCON AT THE PORTAL/HE SHALL THUNDER IN THE SKY by Elizabeth Peters: Okay, I'm cheating slightly here. These are two volumes. If necessary, I will pull the covers off and restitch by hand into one volume. You can't read one without the other. The highpoint of the Amelia Peabody Egyptian mysteries, these are set just before and during WWI and find Ramses doing undercover intelligence work for the British while Nefret tries to sort out her romantic life. I literally threw FALCON AT THE PORTAL at the wall when I finished reading it at 2:00 a.m. because I knew I would have to wait a whole year to read the next one.

6. DAUGHTER OF THE FOREST by Juliet Marillier: I love all Marillier's historical fantasies, but if I had to pick just one to keep, it would her first. Based on the fairy tale of the wicked stepmother who turns her stepsons into swans and the little sister who has to save them by making shirts of nettles without speaking. Marillier bases the story in Ireland of the 8th or 9th century and weaves a wonderful fantasy that's grounded in our own history. I simply love it and Sorcha will forever be my favorite of Marillier's characters.

7. THE BROTHERS OF GWYNEDD QUARTET by Edith Pargeter: Better known for her Brother Cadfael medieval mysteries (written under the name Ellis Peters), Pargeter also wrote fabulous historical novels. I was torn between this volume and Sharon Kay Penman's HERE BE DRAGONS, but had to come down on the side of these four novels in one volume. They follow the life of Llwellyn, the last true prince of Wales. This is a book that, when I put it down, I thought, "If this isn't how it really happened, it should have." I conceived a lasting admiration of Llewellyn and the Welsh, and a lasting resentment of Edward I in these books. I cry every time I reach the end, it doesn't matter that I know what's coming.

This is not an easy exercise. Try it. Assuming you'd still have access to libraries, what 7 books could you not bear to part with, that you simply must be able to lay your hands on whenever you like? Already I'm thinking of dozens I left off this list: ENDER'S GAME, POSSESSION, MIDDLEMARCH, JANE EYRE and VILLETTE, volumes of English poetry, HARRY POTTER in all its storytelling glory . . . and now I'm getting a headache just thinking about it. I think I'll go walk the length of my many bookshelves and appreciate the hundreds of books I own.

GREAT NEWS!

My dearest writing friend in the world, Ginger Churchill, has her first book available for pre-order at Amazon. Carmen's Sticky Scab runs the length and width of a child's imagination when she gets a scab: from blood to sharks to little boys wanting a taste. If you don't think it's for you grown-ups, you're probably right. But read it to a child and wait for the laughter.

http://www.amazon.com/Carmens-Sticky-Scab-Ginger-Churchill/dp/1933718137/ref=sr_1_1/002-8909410-3652046?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1181936483&sr=1-1

I know, it's a long and unwieldy link. I know there's a way to condense it in my posts. But I have yet to understand the process, try as I might.

And can I just say--there's nothing better than typing in your friend's name to Amazon and having her book come up!

May Reads

THE DISORDERLY KNIGHTS/ PAWN IN FRANKINCENSE/THE RINGED CASTLE/CHECKMATE by Dorothy Dunnett: The remainder of the Lymond chronicles, begun last month. Set in the 16th-century, these four books bounce around the world from Malta to France to the Muslim coast of Africa to Greece to Constantinople to Russia and include such historical figures as the Knights Grand Cross of St. John and Ivan the Terrible. But my favorite locales are England and Lymond's home ground of Scotland, and my favorite characters are the entirely fictional. Francis Crawford of Lymond really grew on me, especially through PAWN IN FRANKINCENSE and he meets his female match in Philippa Somerville, who makes her first appearance in the earliest book as a 10-year-old English border girl who despises the Scotsman whom her parents are helping. By the time she's a 16-year-old walking knowingly into the Sultan's harem in order to rescue Lymond's child, I knew she was the only girl for Lymond. These books are packed with literary allusions and historical details and dozens of characters and more plot than you can shake a stick at--but it's Lymond and Philippa who made this series live for me. I didn't always like Lymond or agree with his actions, but he wormed his way into my mind and heart until, when I put down the last book, I knew that he and Philippa would live forever in my imagination. Not many characters do that.


THE HANGING GARDEN by Ian Rankin: Edinburgh DI John Rebus is investigating the case of a possible Nazi officer who ordered the deaths of an entire French town. Is the college professor Rebus is investigating the former officer? If he is, what responsibility should he bear for a war crime committed fifty years ago? And what about the mixed motives of those who either want to expose him or conceal him? In the midst of this comes personal tragedy as Rebus's daughter is struck by a hit and run driver. Throw in two (or three) gangs fighting for supremacy in Edinburgh and a missing Bosnian prostitute and there's a lot going on. The gang aspect wasn't my favorite part of this book, but I enjoyed seeing Rebus as a father and his musings on the possible war criminal.

THE BURNING GIRL by Mark Billingham: Twenty years after a man was imprisoned for setting fire to a teenage girl, someone emerges to claim they imprisoned the wrong man. Another gangster book (I feel quite hip on my British gangs now!) but the multiple POVs and the twisting of the old case with the new kept it interesting. But I did hit a major problem near the end of the book, in an action taken by Inspector Tom Thorne. It turned off a lot of my sympathy and tainted the character for me. So I'm not sure quite how I feel about this book as a whole.

GREGOR AND THE CODE OF CLAW by Suzanne Collins: The fifth and last in the Gregor the Overlander YA series. Beneath New York City lies a civilization of humans who are about to launch a possibly endgame war against the rats. 12-year-old Gregor is The Warrior of their prophecies, but the last prophecy doesn't look too good for him. My favorite scenes were the code breaking, where Gregor's sister Lizzie comes into her own. The final confrontation between Gregor and the giant white rat known as The Bane is suitably impressive. My only complaint with this book is that I didn't feel the series is completely ended. I wanted more of an ending than the one I got. Hopefully this means that at some point Collins will revisit the Underland.

THE PORTRAIT by Iain Pears: A uniquely structured book, the artist narrator speaks directly to the subject of his latest portrait. As the conversation unfolds, we learn that the artist and his sitter have known each other for years, that the sitter is an art critic, the artist has fled London within the last few years for self-imposed exile in a French fishing village, and slowly we begin to piece together their shared history and the motive behind this portrait. I wouldn't want to read too many books in this structure, but it worked beautifully, in that I was considerably surprised by several of the revelations even when I thought I had them figured out.

KNOTS AND CROSSES by Ian Rankin: KNOTS AND CROSSES introduces John Rebus as a divorced dad of an 11-year-old, brother to a possibly shady stage illusionist, and detective in the confusing case of dead girls who have, as far as the police can tell, absolutely nothing in common. This is my third Rebus book and the first one about which I can say,wholeheartedly--I loved it! It was my kind of story--intricate, with lots of details that twist around and fit in eventually, a killer with a most interesting motive, a clue that took my breath away when I realized what it meant, and a detective whom I could understand if not always agree with. I'm so happy, because now I have all these other Rebus books to explore :)

SLEEPYHEAD by Mark Billingham: If KNOTS AND CROSSES made me like John Rebus more, I'm afraid this book made me like Inspector Tom Thorne less. I was iffy about him after reading THE BURNING GIRL, but no longer. Now I just don't like him at all. And I think I might know why--near the end of the book, he thinks about the fact that he doesn't care why killers do what they do. Motive does not interest him. Motive, however, interests me enormously. I think his attitude permeated the book, so that it was more a game of police vs. killer, and less an exploration of human beings and how things can go terribly wrong in our heads and our relationships. I doubt I'll read more Billingham.

APRIL READS


THE GAME OF KINGS/QUEEN'S PLAY by Dorothy Dunnett: The first two in the Lymond Chronicles, historical fiction at its adventurous, sword-fighting, politicking, religious squabbling, bawdy best. Francis Crawford of Lymond is the younger son of a noble Scots family. Five years ago, he was revealed as an English spy and banished from Scotland. Now he's come home. Is it to wreak havoc or redeem his name? It's not always easy to tell and Lymond is a very hard protagonist to pin down. The first book gave me fits getting used to the style and prose. But it wrapped up in a most satisfying way and the second book was just as good, when Lymond goes to France to help protect his 7-year-old queen, Mary, from assassination attempts. Set in the turbulent mid-1500s, these books are a marvelous treasure for anyone who enjoys historical fiction.


CLOUD OF UNKNOWING by Thomas Cook: Another stunning novel by Cook. When his nephew drowns, David Sears watches his sister come undone by the tragedy. Diana helped care for their schizophrenic father when they were children and with her son's death her own mental stability is called into question. She's convinced her husband helped kill their son and becomes obsessed with researching ancient ritual killings. Gradually she begins to believe that the earth is a living entity who could tell her the truth about her son's death. When Diana begins to threaten his own family, David must decide what to do. A powerful examination of the power of blood and family myth--as well as the love of siblings for one another.


HOUSE ON THE STRAND by Daphne du Maurier: One of the few du Maurier books I missed as a teenager. Dick Young has been lent his friend's Cornwall house for free. All his friend, Magnus, asks of him is to participate in a little science experiment. But there's nothing little about it--when Dick drinks from the flask left him by Magnus, he's transported back in time to the same valley in the 14th century. The story alternates between the present and the past, with Dick growing increasingly addicted to the people whose stories he is watching in the past. A sudden death underlines the danger of mixing times, but Dick cannot stop until he knows the end of the story.


UNLESS by Carol Shields: A Pulitzer Prize winner, Shields' final novel before her death is about Reta Winters, a quite companion, mother, translator, and writer in Canada whose life is turned upside down when her oldest daughter, Norah, drops out of university to sit on a Toronto street corner with a sign that reads simply "Goodness." Reta looks to literature and her own writing to try and make sense of it all. Is Norah troubled by the silencing of women throughout history? Can one love both the world as a whole and the individuals in it? Is silence simply a choice that Norah is free to make? A quiet but intriguing novel. Not precisely my usual fare, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.


THE ROBBER BRIDE by Margaret Atwood: Another fabulous Canadian woman author, Atwood delivers a book about three fascinating women who would never have been friends if not for the one thing they have in common--the destructive power of a woman called Zenia. She wrought disaster in each of their lives, one after the other, and then died. At her funeral, they rejoiced. But five years later, in a Toronto restaurant, Zenia comes back from the supposed dead. We get the story of each woman in turn, as Zenia trails poison through their lives, all the time wondering what she's up to now and who she plans to hurt next. Beautifully plotted, intricately written, dazzlingly characterized. Loved it.


DISSOLUTION by C.J. Sansom: First novel in a Tudor mystery series, featuring lawyer Matthew Shardlake who works for Lord Cromwell. One year after Anne Boleyn's execution, King Henry VIII has turned to threats veiled as persuasion to complete his dissolution of the Catholic monastaries in England. When a royal commissioner is found beheaded at Scarnsea Monastery, Matthew Shardlake is sent to discover the killer and complete the monastery's surrender to the crown. Shardlake uncovers evidence of sexual impropriety, embezzlement, and treason, but two more deaths lead him to believe there is more to Scarnsea than a simple religious motive. Anne's death on Tower Green casts a shadow even here, and Shardlake has to cope not only with murder but the destruction of his own beliefs.

CREATIVITY AND KINDNESS

Writing is hard.

I know this shouldn't come as a revelation--I've been doing this seriously for four years. I've had my share of exhaustion and despair over editing and rewriting and plotting and the sheer labor of thinking what to do next when an editor says, "I liked it but not well enough to take it on."

But my current project is by far the hardest thing I've ever done. Does that mean I'm growing as a writer? Or that isn't the project for me and I should move on? Or that I'm merely tired from months of mono and my body and mind are using all its energy to getting better? I don't know. All I know is that some days stubbornness is all I have to call upon--"I will write one page before I fold laundry. I will write one page before I make dinner." (And you know it's got to be bad when I'm thinking of laundry and cooking as better alternatives!)

I came across a quote from Orson Scott Card's HOW TO WRITE SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY and it struck home with me: "You have to be willing to change anything during the creation phase; only that way can you make the story be true to yourself. There's nothing sacred about your original idea--it was just the starting point . . . So the story is nothing like what you first thought it would be. But so what? It's better--richer, deeper, truer--than that original idea. The idea did its work: It got you thinking."

And that, in a cliched nutshell, is the story of my new book. It started as a craft writing assignment in my online group--"Show a preternaturally gifted child." Then it became a short story that was a quarterfinalist in Writers of the Future. The story was in first-person. When I came to start the book, I picked up where I'd left off in the story and wrote it in 3rd person (being a fan of multiple viewpoints as I am.) I wrote a hundred pages like that, then went back and rewrote the story in 3rd person which turned into the first three chapters. And then I stalled. I knew the important events. I knew where the story ended--I just couldn't make myself write it. Following my friend, Ginger's, wise counsel that writer's block is just your mind's way of telling you that you're headed the wrong way, I stopped writing and started thinking. I read a lot. I fell in love with a new TV show on BBC America (Robin Hood). I let my mind wander.

And then I started over again.

I'm back in first-person. It's hard, I've never done it before for a book-length work, but it's right. I got three chapters in and stalled again. And then I realized--she was meeting her love interest too late. So I moved that forward by four chapters. And the wrong person died in the early chapters--I killed someone else. I've stuck to the single idea that has driven all of this time and effort--a 16-year-old girl in 12th century England whose ability to read minds men of two countries would kill to possess--but everything else is negotiable. I took Card's advice and let my story twist itself into its own form. And it's already a better book.

Now if I can just finish it!

As for the kindness: I've mentioned DorothyL, the listserv for mystery lovers. I've posted on there from time to time, but I finally got up the nerve last week to post some reservations I'd had about a book and author. Ian Rankin is extremely popular and his books sell extremely well, but the one I'd picked up in the middle of the series left me a bit underwhelmed. So I asked on DorothyL if I'd just picked the wrong book to start with and whether I should give him another try.

Sandra Ruttan emailed me almost at once, asking me to send her a list of my favorite authors and what I enjoy in mysteries. Then she went to a bookstore (in Canada), bought me a different Rankin to try as well as book by Mark Billingham. And she's sending them to me.

Can you believe it?! Who knew that I would find such kindness by merely asking a question.

In any case, on Sandra's blog today she talks about how to excite people into reading books. It's a wonderful piece and I'm going to challenge myself to do what she did so graciously: Next time someone asks me about a book to read, I won't just reflexively offer my personal favorites. I'll take the time to understand what they love and search out a specific book for them. For readers, there's nothing better than discovering a new author. I want to give that to my friends and family. Here's hoping you'll do the same!

March Reads--part 2 (otherwise known as the books I enjoyed on my trip to Dubai)


WHAT THE DEAD KNOW by Laura Lippman: My second Lippman book, just as good the first one I tried. Thirty years ago, the Bethany sisters disappeared from a Baltimore shopping mall. No trace of them was ever found. Now a woman involved in a car accident claims to be the younger girl. But she clams up afterward, releasing only bits and pieces of her story and the detective believes at least some of what she's telling them is a lie. If she is Heather Bethany, why won't she tell the truth about what happened? And why does she not want to see her mother?

THE MINOTAUR by Barbara Vine: The pen name for Ruth Rendell's psychological novels, the minotaur referenced in the title is John Cosway, a schizophrenic for whom a Swedish nurse has been hired. Kerstin can't figure out the Cosway family--controlling mother and four beautiful but odd sisters--and she spends her time searching for the famous maze that is supposed to exist but can't be traced anywhere in the gardens. Kerstin grow suspcious about John's diagnosis and treatment and the motives of his mother, and a sudden death strengthens her fears.

THE STOLEN CHILD by Keith Donohue: I wanted to like this book club choice, really I did. And I was on vacation, so it's not like I was in a bad mood when I read it. But it just didn't do anything for me. The idea is intriguing--the concept of changelings who steal a human child in order to take its place. The stolen child is condemned to live forever (barring accident), accumulating years of experience living in the wild but never changing physically. The book follows both Henry Day (who used to be a changeling and steals Henry's life at the age of 7) and Aniday (which is the name the original Henry Day takes when he reaches the wild as a changeling. My major problem with this book was that it didn't have a story. At least not enough of one. I like things to happen in a book, threads to weave together, unexpected moments of connection and revelation, an ending that leaves me feeling I've made a journey. None of that happened for me in this book--I felt as though I was reading a condensed calendar of events in the two lives and it frankly bored me.

A SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING by Bill Bryson: I love Bryson's travel books, particularly NOTES FROM A SMALL ISLAND (about England.) In this book, he brings his humor and unique observations to, well, short history of nearly everything. The natural world, in other words, and the cosmos, and humans, and how we ended up where we are on the planet we are in the solar system we are. If you'd told me I'd ever love a book that talks about evolution and quarks and paleontology, I'd have laughed you to scorn. But not only did I love this book, I now feel that I have at least a basic grasp of many concepts that went right over my head in school science classes. That's what good writing can do--make anything accessible and interesting!

There and back again (My trip to Dubai)


Planes: four airports and three flights in 28 hours. As Katie succinctly put it, “Some people are nice, some people aren’t.” Enjoyed three hours at Heathrow, especially the shortbread.

First impressions: Hot. Dry. And yet surprisingly green. Traditional Arab dhows along the waterfront port. Construction cranes. Good air-conditioning in both cars and buildings.

Gold & Diamond Souk: Wow. I am not a bling-bling person, but this souk is darned impressive. Jewels in every color and size, many that look just like the ring-pops I buy my kids. Only real. Katie bought her husband a wedding ring. I bought a pair of rosy garnet earrings (pink with little diamonds on top.) My favorite shops were the ones that sold traditional Indian jewelry, the kind brides wear at their weddings. The most stunning gold work, all twisted and coiled and filigreed and no doubt weighing dozens of pounds.

Jumeirah Mosque: The only mosque in Dubai open to non-Muslims. They lead tours several mornings a week. This was one of my favorite parts of the trip. We had a wonderful guide, an engineering student from Dubai Men’s College, who first showed us the washing ritual done outside the mosque before prayers. Inside the mosque, women were asked to cover their hair and then we had a discussion that ranged from the Five Pillars of Islam to Mecca to the purpose of the women covering themselves when outside their home to Ramadan. The mosque is beautiful (“Old, very old” as he put it—28 years, which is very old in Dubai!) and we were encouraged to take pictures. I tried not to flinch when an American asked about Islam and violence, but the young man handled it very well.

Malls: Dubai is famous for its malls, each one bigger and more elaborate than the last. We started out at the Mall of the Emirates, which is famous for Ski Dubai at one end, an indoor ski slope and tubing hill. Nothing like watching women in abayas (the black outer robe) on skies. There’s a grocery story in this mall (including an olive bar, with dozens of kinds of olives, and an elaborate spice area with both ground and whole spices) and our favorite part of this mall was the escalator for shopping carts right in the middle. No steps, just a long slope so you could get your shopping cart up to the next floor. We also spent a little time at Ibn Batutta Mall, which is built around seven different courtyards (Indian, Persian, Egyptian, to name a few) and at the Madinet Souk which, as its name implies, is constructed to look like a very upmarket Arabian souk. And all of this leads inevitably to . . .

Shopping: I did remarkably little shopping in the malls. Okay, I did come out of Ibn Batutta with a pink camel for my daughter. Come on, what 8-year-old girl wouldn’t love a pink camel! But the bulk of my shopping was done in two places, only one of which I’ll mention right here. The Fakih Antiques Museum. (I think. I don’t have any of their bags around any more to check that spelling.) It’s located in construction zone (what part of Dubai isn’t?) and in a group of warehouses that look like, well, warehouses on the outside. The only hint of something special are the enormous wooden doors that are truly antiques and that you can buy if you so desire. You enter the outer doors into a very modern reception area, then you go up two steps, duck to get through a short wooden carved door and voila! You’re in Aladdin’s cave. Or something near to it. Aisles about three feet wide, floor to ceiling shelves, a perfect jumble of boxes and lamps and tourist stuff and silver and shoes and pashminas and tablecloths and framed scorpions and bottled snakes . . . I’ve never had so much fun shopping in my life. We actually went twice. The last day we’d thought of several more things that we had to take home as gifts and so we returned. What are some of the amazing things I found, for myself or others?

Gifts: Embroidered tunics for 6 dollars. Hand-beaded shoes for 20 dollars. Pashminas for anywhere from 10 to, hmmm, I didn’t buy the most expensive ones that went up to 500 dollars. I decided on quantity—5 pashminas as gifts and 4 for myself. Traditional Omani daggers (tourist quality, not sharp) for my boys. An alarm clock that sounds the call to prayer. A little gold genie lamp for my youngest. Jewelry for my daughter. Silk table runner for my mother-in-law. A silk and velvet bedspread for me—only 100 dollars! Truly, it’s a miracle we got everything in our suitcases. And that’s without touching the other great shopping experience . . .

Oman: We spent three days at the Al-Sawadi beach resort in neighboring Oman. What could be better than a beach, a pool, the best massage of my life, a henna tattoo, and all-inclusive food. (Don’t get me started on the dessert bar—I’m hooked on Arabic honey pastries for life!) One night, Katie and I took the free shuttle bus to Muscat, the capital, about an hour away. We were dropped off outside the Mutrah souk, which can trace its history back hundreds of years. Muscat is a beautiful city, situated around a port that the Portugese controlled for some time. There are a series of old forts perched on the mountaintops around the city and we heard the call to prayer from a lovely mosque as we arrived. The souk is amazing—all winding pathways and inlaid ceilings and carved walls. It was here that I most felt foreign. Dubai is crawling with foreigners, but we could go fifteen or twenty minutes in the Mutrah souk as the only white women and the only ones not wearing the abaya and head scarf. We provoked some giggles and stares from passing girls. It was in the souk that I bought perhaps my favorite gift—a singing camel for my 5-year-old. But the bulk of our shopping was done on the promenade, particularly an Indian fabric store. They’ll be talking about us for months—the American ladies who know how to sew and bought meters and meters of Indian raw silk and other gorgeous fabric. It’s sitting in my sewing room right now, just waiting to be turned into gorgeous dresses.

Food: Yummy, both the expensive and the cheap. Cheeseburgers at the Food and Juice Centre in Muscat, chicken with bones at Eat and Drink Restaurant in Dubai, Thai buffet across the water from the famous Burg Hotel, outstanding desserts at the Lime Tree Café, even beef bacon at the beach resort.

Coming home: Long. Exhausting. Topped off by my friend’s missing bag at the end. Glad to report the bag has made its way home and is now in her hands. I would go again. I want to go again, to see how Dubai changes and to visit more of Muscat.

MARCH READS, PART 1

Since I'm shortly to embark on a trip to Dubai (which will include long plane rides, 3 days on the beach in Oman, and a stack of books), I thought I'd get the first 7 books for March out of the way.

HARDSCRABBLE ROAD by Jane Haddam: a Gregor Demarkian mystery. The retired FBI agent is struggling in his personal life and can't quite wrap his head around the oddities of his newest case--a missing homeless man who was accused by a radio personality of procuring drugs for him. Haddam's politics have moved into her books over the years, but they never overtake the story. Her plotting is superb, with corpses turning up where they shouldn't and surprise identifications of said corpses. Recommended series.

MISERY by Stephen King: I picked this up after watching the movie on TV one night. Paul is the popular writer of Misery Chastain, a 19th-century heroine who gets into one romantic scrape after another. Annie Wilkes is Paul's "Number One Fan." When Paul is seriously injured in a car accident in the Colorado mountains, Annie discovers him and takes him to her isolated farm. Crippled by the injuries to his legs, with no phone in the house, trapped with a woman he quickly realizes is insane, Paul must literally write for his life.

WATER LIKE A STONE by Deborah Crombie: Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James series. When Duncan brings Gemma and their boys to spend Christmas with his family in Cheshire, he doesn't expect to walk straight into murder. But his sister, Juliet, has discovered the body of a baby, walled up inside an old barn. Juliet's marriage is falling apart, her daughter is increasingly secretive, and another body is found by Kincaid's son. I love this series, and I loved this entry with its mix of family troubles and outside violence. Crombie is brilliant at getting inside people's heads and I love that about her writing.

RED LEAVES/INTERROGATION by Thomas H. Cook: I'm a fan of Cook, who writes psychological standalone novels. RED LEAVES was on many award lists last year and I agree. When an 8-year-old girl goes missing from her home, her teenage babysitter is suspected. The boy is not easy to love, withdrawn and moody and unmotivated. But could he really have hurt a little girl? The story is told through the father's viewpoint, and he comes to see that not only does he not know his son but he doesn't know all the secrets of his own past. Not an easy read and not an easy ending, but beautiful and compelling and the last chapter is very satisfying. INTERROGATION I read immediately after and didn't like as much. A girl has been killed in the 1950s. A suspect has been arrested. But there's no evidence and they can only hold him twelve more hours. So the police give one more try in interrogating the suspect. The story is complex in spite of that simple set-up, but I found it too relentlessly sad for me. Somehow, even with its dark subject, RED LEAVES left me satisfied. INTERROGATION didn't.

DEATH COMES FOR THE FAT MAN by Reginald Hill: Andy Dalziel is the heart and soul of Mid-Yorkshire. When he's severely injured in a terrorist bombing, Peter Pascoe is on a mission to find out what happened and why. While Dalziel floats above his world in a coma, Pascoe puts himself in harm's way by joining up with the British anti-terrorist officers, one of whom may be the enemy. Behind the complicated cover of a new group of Knights Templar who believe in an eye for an eye (or a head for a head), lies the true mystery which is, of course, personal. An excellent addition to the series and one I'll have to read again soon to savor--I was too busy the first time wondering about the outcome for Dalziel.

PAPER WOMAN by Suzanne Adair: in 1780, Sophie Barton is tired of the continuing war. Courted by a British officer and weary of her life working her father's printing press, the twice-widowed Sophie longs for escape. When her father, a patriot, is killed, Sophie determines to find the killer. From Georgia to Florida to Cuba, from spies to assassins to Creek warriors to mysterious emeralds, the book is an interesting look at the south during the Revolutionary War. At times the setting and history overwhelm the story, and I'm still not sure I entirely understand the wrap-up of the plot.

It's official: I'm going to be published.

Before you all start jumping for the phone to congratulate me and/or ask me for money, let me clarify. It's not a big deal. It's not a book; it's not even fiction.

Last year, a friend in my online writing group posted a link to a contest called "Letters to My Mother". They were soliciting submissions for an anthology entitled the same to come out this year around Mother's Day. Last March for my birthmother's birthday, I wrote a letter telling her the reasons I was grateful she was my mother. With a bit of tweaking, I easily had a suitable submission.

While in Kenya last June, I received an email telling me I was a finalist and should know by the end of September if my entry would be published. Yes, that was indeed six months ago. Welcome to the first lesson of publishing--Patience is a Virtue.

In any case, I got the notification today that my letter will be in the anthology, which should be available shortly. As soon as I have purchasing information, I'll be sure to put up a link.

And I am getting paid for it, the first time I can say that about my writing. Of course, it's all of ten dollars. I figure I might throw caution to the wind and frame the check rather than cash it. Or, as a writer friend suggested, I can scan the check to frame, and then spend it. The best of both worlds!

I'm in mourning.

Our computer died Monday.

It's not an irretrievable loss. I don't feel the need to throw myself on the burning pyre of its remains. My writing still exists, nicely backed up on my laptop. But there are some losses.

The one I'm noticing most at the moment? The loss of my favorites list online. My laptop had a few of my favorite sites, but most everything I've saved for research purposes over the years was on the other computer. Medical sites on neurosyphillis. Medieval Welsh castles. Common poisons. Tudor battles. History of the Welsh longbow. English/Welsh dictionary. Victorian women's education. History of the British police force, including the number of officers in any London station in 1900. WWI trench poetry. Agents and publishers.

Of course I can find them again. I hope. But it doesn't feel the same. I spent hours on that old computer researching those sites. I loved them, and I loved what they represented about my writing. (If my husband ever dies suddenly from monkshood poisoning, I might have a hard time explaining it away.) My favorites list is a peek into my psyche. Maybe not a pretty one, but revealing.

Now I start over.

FEBRUARY 2007 READS

THE THIRTEENTH TALE by Diane Setterfield: Vida Winter is a famous novelist whose life is coming to an end. Margaret Lea is the woman chosen to write Winter's biography. Not an easy task, given that Winter has spent her life making up backgrounds for herself as easily as she made up her stories. A tribute to the best gothic novels, in the tradition of Bronte and du Maurier, this book is a wonderful story of twins, haunted houses, mysterious deaths, mistaken identities, and the power of literature. I didn't see the resolution coming, but it was perfect and supported by everything that came before. I loved, loved, loved this story.

I LOVE EVERYBODY AND OTHER ATROCIOUS LIES/THE IDIOT GIRLS' ACTION-ADVENTURE CLUB by Laurie Notaro: two books of humorous essays about one woman's life. I needed easy reading that would make me laugh, and these books did it. My favorite essay has to be about Jerry, the homeless man who shows up to do yard work for her without tools. His method of bringing down a dead orange tree is to throw himself bodily upon the tree and rip off branches with his bare hands and then kick them when they're down. Her writing is funny and her take on life suits my own skewed sense of humor.

WUTHERING HEIGHTS by Emily Bronte: book club choice. Heathcliff, Cathy, and the Yorkshire moors--I fell in love with this book when I was a teenager and I was glad to see how well it held up for me twenty years later. Though there aren't many likeable characters in this book, the power of the writing and the imagery and the story itself is unique in Victorian novels. Someone said it was poetry masquerading as prose and I agree. Emily Bronte wrote a beautiful book that captures a time and place and people like few writers ever have.

APRIL FOOL'S DAY by Bryce Courtenay: by the writer of THE POWER OF ONE and TANDIA, this is a non-fiction account of his son Damon's life and death. Damon was born with haemophilia and at the age of 17 was infected with HIV from a transfusion. He died of AIDS at 23, on April Fool's Day. Not an easy book to read. I'm glad I did, for it helped me understand things I will never experience, like the constant and increasing pain of a haemophiliac, the crippling of joints as they grow older, and then the terror of a new disease which brings not only physical ruin but social ostracism. The saddest part of the book was when Damon was in the HIV ward in hospital and the boy in the room next to him died all alone because his family wouldn't come see him. My compassion increased in reading this book.

MY COUSIN RACHEL by Daphne du Maurier: I read this so long ago that I couldn't remember the story. I love du Maurier and this is a classic: a young man whose cousin and guardian falls in love in Italy, marries, and then dies after sending several letters that more or less accuse his wife, Rachel, of killing him. Phillip is determined to hate Rachel, but that doesn't last long when she actually shows up in England. At first bewildered, then fascinated, by Rachel, Phillip ends up in love and showering her with gifts. Is it the money Rachel wants? Why has she come to England? And what really happened to her husband? You'll have to read to find out.

CHAOS AND THE POWER OF BREAD

I don't do chaos.

I think that's partly due to my mom. When I was young, I suffered from the same sickness I now see infecting my daughter--what I call "the need to possess many adorable trinkets and keep them all on display even when the shelves are groaning from the weight of them." And don't even get me started on what my drawers used to look like--my mom has a good story there :)

But my mother taught me that important lesson (in both decorating and life)--Less is More.

And that's translated into a love of order, a love of neatness, a love of going to bed each night with every floor in my home picked up and every counter clear. (We'll just ignore the little thing called The Play Room--pretend it's a bigger version of the drawers in my adolescence.)

Last week, my house was in chaos.

We're having new floors installed in several key rooms of our house, including the master bedroom. Which meant furniture and clothing and books and videos had to be crammed into other rooms and for several nights none of us slept upstairs. It also meant long hours of sawing and pounding and dust settling and, well, all sorts of things that qualify as chaos. I had to use my laptop rather than my desktop, I couldn't take a nap (which is important with this lingering mono), and I couldn't watch whatever I wanted on my very own TV in my very own bedroom.

And into the midst of this cacophony came bread, apples, cheese, and one of my best friends. For several hours Tuesday afternoon we settled on one of many couches in the family room, ignored the hammering upstairs, and talked. Her new baby is an angel and slept in my arms almost the whole time. Her daughter and my son played together and generally left us alone. What better Valentine's week treat could there be?

As I've said before--I've got the best friends in the world.

And a loaf of French bread can cure nearly anything.

THINGS I'M EXCITED ABOUT . . .

The groundhog didn't see his shadow

Sun

The reappearance of the mountains after two weeks

My husband's good job

Good schools--and having all four children in school

Good books

New-to-me authors

Hamish MacBeth on DVD

Weekend posse shopping trip to Park City

March trip to Dubai

June trip to Mexico

A whole brand-new day each day in which almost anything might happen!

THINGS I'M TIRED OF . . .

Winter

Below-freezing temperatures

Smog

Snow that won't melt

Mono

Laundry

Cooking

Science fair projects (there is a reason I majored in English!)

My husband traveling

Children indoors all the time (see below-freezing temps above)

Sigh . . .

January 2007 Books

AMONG THE HIDDEN by Margaret Peterson Haddix: a younger YA book about a society where third children are illegal. The first in the Shadow Children series. My boys and I have read them all, but this one remains my favorite. Luke has lived his whole life isolated on a family farm. Then houses are built behind their farm and he makes friends with another third child, Jen. Reckless where Luke is cautious, Jen is determined to change the plight of the shadow children.

A LONG SHADOW/A FALSE MIRROW by Charles Todd: the two most recent in the Inspector Rutledge series. Set in 1920, Ian Rutledge is still haunted by the trenches and the many men who died under his command. I like Rutledge and the feel for post-WWI England and I generally like the involved plots--but the author often hides information near the end so that I often feel thrust outside Rutledge's experience since the writer doesn't share everything Rutledge knows or does. It's a fine line between being coy and cheating and these books are starting to stray into cheating.

THE WELL OF SHADES by Juliet Marillier: my husband had a work friend in Australia send him this third in a trilogy for my Christmas present (it won't be published in the U.S. until May.) Marillier writes historical fantasies, and she delivers a winner in this conclusion to The Bridei Chronicles. Set in Pictish Scotland in about 500 A.D., Marillier has wonderful characters, complex love stories, battles and traitors and a spoiled, psychopathic princess who has no problem killing when life gets boring. Plus the magic of the Druids--what's not to love!

PARDONABLE LIES by Jacqueline Winspear: the third in this 1930's series find Maisie Dobbs trying to prove that a WWI pilot actually died when his plane was shot down more than twelve years before. It's Maisie's most personally difficult case yet, taking her back to France where she served as a nurse and where her first love was taken from her. I love the mood of these books, it feels like you're in a different time and world reading them. Maisie is a sympathetic and strong heroine, one of many English women who were left behind when a generation of young men died.

TOWER OF SILENCE by Sarah Rayne: Secluded Scottish town. Asylum for the criminally insane. Quiet spinster whose childhood was marred by tragedy. When Joanna Savile arrives in Moy with the aim of interviewing its most famous inmate, she sets off a course of events that began with a bloody uprising in India fifty years ago. No one is quite who they seem and connections are everywhere as the story moves back and forth in time. A new-to-me writer, I devoured this book in two days. Not for the faint of heart or those prone to nightmares, but a great story for a winter's afternoon when you just want to be swept away and not think too hard.

BLOOD-DIMMED TIDE by Rennie Airth: John Madden used to be a Scotland Yard Inspector. Now, in the early 1930's, he's a gentleman farmer with a doctor wife and two children. But when he's caught in the search for a missing child, Madden can't keep entirely clear of the subsequent murder investigation. A portrait of England still reeling from one war and verging on the brink of another, I especially enjoyed the German detective who's working on what may be connected cases involving and the delicate negotiations between protecting a British spy and the rise of the Nazis to power.

FREAKONOMICS by Levitt and Dubner: "Morality is how one thinks the world should work. Economics is how the world actually works." A book club read, with titles like "Why do Drug Dealers still Live with their Mothers" and "What do the Ku Klux Klan and Real-estate Agents have in Common?", this economics book barely talks money at all but rather shows thinking beyond the conventional wisdom and opened my mind to a new way (upside down and sideways) of asking questions and gathering information. Recommended.

TWILIGHT/NEW MOON by Stephenie Meyer--a BYU graduate, Meyer woke up one morning from a vivid dream which she promptly wrote down. That scene, of a girl and her vampire boyfriend in a meadow, became the linchpin of her first novel, TWILIGHT. Within six months of that dream, Meyer had written the book, found an agent, and signed a six-figure, multi-book contract. Amazingly, I don't hate her. Mostly because TWILIGHT is a fabulous book. I devoured it. I inhaled it. I dreamt about it and completely forgot I was reading someone's work and just dove into the story itself. Bella Swan doesn't know what's she in for when she moves to Forks, Washington and meets the enigmatic and unearthly beautiful Cullen family. But I can tell you what you're in for if you pick up TWILIGHT and the sequel NEW MOON--storytelling at its best.

ART OF DETECTION by Laurie R. King: I'm a big fan of King's Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes' novels. Not so much her contemporaries. I picked up this Kate Martinelli police procedural because it involves the death of a Sherlock Holmes fanatic and includes the text of a previously unknown Holmes story. I thought with King crossing lines between her two series that I would enjoy it, but I didn't. It was okay, just not for me. I'll stick to waiting for another Mary Russell.

ELLA MINNOW PEA by Mark Dunn: my brother-in-law recommended this and I'm so glad I finally read it. Ella lives on the fictional island of Nollop, where the villagers revere Nevin Nollop, the creator of the infamous sentence that uses all the letters in the alphabet: "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog." When letters start to fall from Nollop's statue, the council begins to forbid their use. As the letters disappear from the islanders' vocabulary, they also disappear from the novel. The book is more than a clever exercise--it's also a spirited look at totalitarianism and one girl's fight for freedom of expression.

THE CHRISTMAS SECRET by Anne Perry: a Christmas novella featuring one of Perry's minor characters. Dominic Corde and his wife, Clarice, have come to a quiet Oxfordshire town to take over the parish for three weeks. But when the vicar is found to have never left home at all, the Cordes must sift through a multitude of village secrets to find the one worth killing for.

THERE IS LEARNING IN EVERYTHING

I've been reminded recently of all the many, many things I have still to learn.

Like how to draw a scalene triangle.

The difference between a percentage and a percentile.

Where Muscat, Oman is located. (Nothing like children's homework to make an adult feel stupid!)

But I think I'm drawing closer to learning one lesson, the one I call: IT'S NOT ALL ABOUT ME!

I gave a friend of mine THE SPARROW to read recently and we've had a lively e-mail discussion about the book and especially the main character, Emilio Sandoz. Emilio goes through some horrible events. Emilio's pretty mad about those events. Emilio (a Jesuit priest) has lost his faith in God due to these events.

My friend did not care greatly for Emilio. She thought he took too much to himself, arrogant in assuming that all the bad things that happened were solely from a single decision he made. Emilio, in short, was in dire need of learning IT'S NOT ALL ABOUT ME!

For good and bad, things happen in this world. Children are born, children die, wars are fought, peace is made, jobs are gained and lost, manuscripts don't sell, manuscripts are published and then books don't sell, some people love you and some people dislike you and often it has little to do with you at all.

2006 READING IN REVIEW

I just compiled my list of top-ten mysteries read in 2006 (as oppsed to published in 2006) for DorothyL. It's one of my favorite parts of that listserv--the annual listing of subscribers' favorite mysteries. Sometimes I get great books out of the process, sometimes I look at a list and know from the titles it's not for me.

As I looked back at my record of books read last year, I broke them down into genres, just for the interest of seeing if I'm completely unbalanced in my reading. Lots of people on DorothyL read mysteries almost exclusively. I am not one of them, though they do figure largely.

NON-FICTION: 22

MYSTERY: 46

GENERAL FICTION: 19

YOUNG ADULT FICTION: 15

SCI-FI/FANTASY: 9

Out of 111 books read, there wasn't a simple majority in any category (except that fiction beats non-fiction by a mile.) No surprise there, being the lover of stories that I am. I'm also posting my list of favorite mysteries, though I've included the 3 that were on my preliminary list for the top 10 and had to be cut.

TOMB OF THE GOLDEN BIRD, Elizabeth Peters
THE GHOST ORCHID, Carol Goodman
THE STRANGER HOUSE, Reginald Hill
HALF BROKEN THINGS, Morag Joss
TO THE POWER OF THREE, Laura Lippman
ALL MORTAL FLESH, Julia Spencer-Fleming
WHAT CAME BEFORE HE SHOT HER, Elizabeth George
THE LIGHTHOUSE, P.D. James
THE HEADMASTER'S WIFE, Jane Haddam
ON BEULAH HEIGHT, Reginald Hill
DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD, Reginald Hill
THE CONSTANT GARDENER, John le Carre
NO NIGHT IS TOO LONG, Barbara Vine

But my three favorite books of the year are not on this list. One is historical fiction, one is literary fiction (though I could argue for it being a mystery) and one is loosely sci/fi.

HERE THERE BE DRAGONS, Sharon Kay Penman
POSSESSION, A.S. Byatt
THE SPARROW, Mary Doria Russell

Happy reading to all of you in 2007!

DECEMBER READS


THE RECKONING by Sharon Kay Penman: the last in the 13th-century trilogy of Wales. This one focuses on the grandson of Llewellyn Fawr, Llewellyn ap Gruffydd who is also known as the last true Prince of Wales. He was actually accorded that title during the reign of England's Henry III, but a combination of Welsh infighting, a brother who swung back and forth between loyalty and betrayal, and the simple fact that England had time and money on its side meant that it couldn't last. Llewellyn ap Gruffydd married Simon de Montfort's daughter, lost her in childbirth, then was killed later that year (1282) in a completely random stroke of bad luck. His brother David held off England's Edward I for a time, but was finally betrayed by his own men. Edward I is also known as Longshanks for his unusual height and also as The Hammer of the Scots for his brutal repression of Scotland's rebels. But he honed his strength and vengeance in Wales thirty years earlier and his trial of David was the first time that a rebel was sentenced separately for each offense. Thus David ap Gruffydd, once Edward's close friend, was hung, drawn, and quartered. His daughters (and Llewellyn's single daughter) were sent to convents to live out their lives without fear of having children, and David's young sons were kept imprisoned until their deaths. From the Welsh chronicle, after relating the death of Llewellyn ap Gruffydd near Llanganten on the eleventh day of December: "And then all Wales was cast to the ground."

END IN TEARS by Ruth Rendell: an Inspector Wexford novel from one of my favorite writers. A teenage mother is dead, and when Wexford starts investigating no one's secrets will remain hidden. From the heartless plans of two girls preying upon the hopes of infertile couples to Wexford's own daughter's unusual pregnancy to a fanatically modern police woman who endangers her life in the investigation, Rendell weaves a story that I read in two days. Fabulous characters, tense storytelling, and Inspector Wexford. I couldn't ask for more.

HATESHIP, FRIENDSHIP, COURTSHIP, LOVESHIP, MARRIAGE by Alice Munro: a collection of short stories that I inherited from my birth mother. Not really for me, sorry to say. I liked the first story, which gives its name to the collection, but other than that I found them a bit depressing, a bit "so what?", and a bit not my taste. Okay, a lot not my taste. But they were short :)

COLD GRANITE by Stuart MacBride: a first novel, it got great reviews on DorothyL so I read it. Not for me, I'm afraid. I did read to the end, but I won't be buying anymore by him. It's a police procedural set in Aberdeen and the great strength of the book is the setting--bleak, cold, rainy/snowy, etc. I did feel that I was there. But it wasn't a place I wanted to be. I'm not generally a fan of serial killer books because they're most often boring and cliched. (An exception is DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD by Reginald Hill--I highly recommend that one.) This wasn't only a serial killer book, but a serial killer of children book. And it was very detailed in terms of autopsies and conditions of the bodies and other sorts of things I really don't need. But the worst of the book is that it was relentlessly cheerless. I didn't like any of the characters, except the poor children, and I really don't want to spend any more time with DS Logan McRae.

LIGHT FROM HEAVEN by Jan Karon: could not have gone more different in this next book. The last in the Mitford series, a relentlessly cozy world in which there is no murder, just minor mysteries at most, involving Episcopal priest Father Tim and his writer wife, Cynthia. I believe I've skipped several in the middle, but this isn't a series that requires a lot of attention to detail. It's warm and soft and quick reading and not a bad way to cleanse my palate after the previous book.

THE MURDERED HOUSE by Pierre Magnan: another DorothyL recommendation. I did like this better, but not my favorite of the month. Translated from the French (which might be part of the problem for me, I'm generally not wild about translations), it's set immediately WWI in a small French village. The house of the title has just been inherited by the only surviving member of a family who was massacred there twenty years earlier. A baby at the time, Seraphin becomes obsessed when he learns the details of the murders and winds up tearing down the house stone by stone. Of course there's a mystery about the murders that is eventually solved, but the book focuses on Seraphin and his desire for vengeance. Soon, the three men he has identified as the killers start dying--but he's not the one doing it. Who is anticipating his vengeance and what really happened the night of the massacre? An interesting enough story, until the last chapter which completely lost me. I hate finishing a book feeling confused.

SKELETONS ON THE ZAHARA by Dean King: for our new couples' book club. In 1815, the Connecticut merchant ship Commerce shipwrecked on the west coast of Africa. The crew was taken into slavery and spent months wandering the Sahara. Primarily the story of Captain Riley and his efforts to free himself and what men of his he could, it's a compelling account of the desert and those who lived there nearly two hundred years ago. Eventually freed, Captain Riley wrote an account of his travails that was famous in the 19th century (Abraham Lincoln is said to have loved the book when he was young). Keep a cup of water near you while reading--you will appreciate water as you never have before!

LABYRINTH by Kate Mosse: an impulse buy, it sat on my shelf until mono hit and I needed something fast-paced and interesting. The story of two women--Alice who stumbles upon a significant archaelogical find in southern France by accident (or was it?) and Alais who lived in the early 1200s in the same region. Enters DA VINCI CODE territory with three books and the secret of eternal life, but better written and historically more interesting as it moves back and forth between the two women's stories. Deals heavily with the Cathars in southern France and the Crusade that was launched against them until they were wiped out. (The first Crusade to be preached against Christians.) I recommend it as a good winter break read, or save it for the beach next summer.

WIVES AND DAUGHTERS by Elizabeth Gaskell: a big, fat Victorian novel to sooth my bored and restless mind while I'm lying around. I love Victorian novels, like those of Anthony Trollope, and thought I'd try out Gaskell. A contemporary of Charlotte Bronte (she actually wrote the first biography of Bronte), Gaskell was a wife, mother, and successful novelist in the mid-1850s. This is her last novel, and it actually remains unfinished because it was written in serial form and she died before the end. But it's sufficient to not disappoint. Molly Gibson is the doctor's daughter in a small English town in the 1830s who, in the course of the novel, acquires a stepmother, stepsister, and several suitors. It's a typical Victorian tale of imprudent marriages, deceitful men, twitterpated women, and the celebration of goodness, innocence, and true love. A wonderful way to end the year.