Books and knitting

Test

2012-02-24T14:05:00.001-08:00

Can I blog from my iPad?

scarf, hat and books

2012-02-17T12:44:00.000-08:00

Family Album by Penelope Lively, 2009. Bit too close to home, re: messed up family. An uncomfortable read but it's a good book.

Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest, Wade Davis, 2011. Very interesting book, just started it and it's going to be a long listen, but it's a good story and he tells it well.

Sheepy Haty

Different lines

baby sweater

2012-02-10T14:22:00.000-08:00

2 books

2012-02-10T08:19:00.000-08:00

Death Comes to Pemberley, P.D. James, 2011. PD combines Jane Austen with a mystery, and it's very well done. It feels like the same characters. Started reading it but am now listening to it and think I like it better that way. Nealy finished and am wishing there would be more books to follow.

Something Fierce: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter by Carmen Aguirre, 2011. Interesting book, her story is a first hand account of living as a revolutionary while growing up and it's a good story. Not that well written but worth reading.

a long long book

2012-01-31T08:31:00.000-08:00

Oh my, 1Q84 by Haruki Muakami, 2011, is long. I listened to it and it seemed to go on forever. I couldn't stop listening to it or skip parts, even though is slow and repetitive, sort of chant-like. It's not a great book, but it does hang on to you and won't let you go. I'm just glad it's over.

Started Sebastian Barry's earlier book, Annie Dunne, 2003 and it is such a relief to be reading such good writing.

Read earlier this year but did not note, On Canaan's Side by Sebastian Barry, 2011. Really liked it. A sad tale but he writes so well. I read the Secret Scripture, 2009, a couple of years ago and liked it as well. I like the way her writes about women, old women.

And on the mystery side, I am really enjoying A Room Full of Bones by Elly Griffiths, 2012

knitting - 2 hitch hikers

2012-01-15T15:37:00.001-08:00

Love knitting the hitchhiker pattern by Martina
Behn and want to make another one.

Socks for brother in law.

Started a sweater, Kate Davies pattern;; Boreal, beautiful wool/ alpace mix.

Second try at making a glove.
First was too big, this one is too small and I have to undo it and start again.

Books

2011-12-27T12:53:00.000-08:00

Finished Michael Ondajte's The Cat's Table and liked it. Good thing I started again from the beginning.

Ian Rankin's latest book about the Complaint's department, The Impossible Dead, 2011 was good too. He writes good mysteries with interesting characters and good plots.

Really liked the booker prize book by Julian Barnes, 2011, a first - I usually hate the Booker books.... The Sense of an Ending, 2011. It gets better and better as you read and by the end the characters are stuck in your head and you are wondering about them. How fallible we are.

Half way through a mystery by Laura Lippman, Baltimore Blues, The First Tess Monaghan Novel. I like that she talks about libraries and book stores.

Just started a really good book, main character has Alzheimer and her best friend was killed. Turn of Mind by Alice LaPlante, 2011. Really interesting to read.

Good book

2011-11-28T09:38:00.000-08:00

Anne Patchett's latest book, State of Wonder, 2011 is good. It was rough going for awhile as the characters were unappealing but by the end she's got you totally involved in all of them. The Amazon sounds overwhelming and too wet and hot and dangerous! It's a good story; the ethics of pharmacology, fertility, malaria, exploitation of people and places.

A fast but interesting read is the book written by a doctor, recommended by Abraham Verghese; Anatomy of a Kidnapping: A Doctor's Story by Steven Berk, 2011. He was taken at gunpoint from his home, and survived to tell the tale. It's well written - a good read.

and knitting, a present made:

finishing things

2011-11-12T10:41:00.001-08:00

Books and knitting...
finished reading the last Troy book, John Lawton's series following Frederick Troy. Sad to not have any more to read, I do like his writing. The last book was A Little White Death, written in 1998. It's set in the early 60's in London mostly. Troy seems to have survived TB, only barely. The plot meanders about, but he pulls it all together in the end and the characters are interesting.

Finished Graham Hurley's book about Joe Faraday's latest case: Borrowed Light, 2011. Set in Portsmouth UK, always interesting because his characters are flawed and believable. The plot doesn't really matter much, just a good mystery. He has a knack for ending his books as cliff hangers, good thing the next one is already in print.

Mitts finished

Blanket

Also finished Charlotte Gray, 1999 by Sebastion Faulks and started his newer book, A Week in Decemberr, 2010. I do like the way he writes. Good storyteller; always my favourite. I'm glad I started reading his books.

blanket and mitts

2011-10-26T14:43:00.000-07:00

Kay Gardiner's Mitered Crosses Blanket so far. Love the pattern. I'm using left over and thrift shop sweater undone finds. Sock yarn doubled for a few squares.

and Kate Davies, mittens only I am making them fingerless

knitting

2011-10-26T06:18:00.000-07:00

Stephen West scarf

Backlogged because I have not got the camera out to take pictures.
The baby sweater and booties were knit in September. I am working on 4 other things. Fingerless mitts, mitered square log cabin blanket almost finished. The bottom shawl is supposed to be Catkin but I am modifying it - did not like the way it was turning out. I do like the Stephen West scarf, Spectra - it just keeps getting left behind by other knitting.

unneverving book

2011-10-16T13:45:00.000-07:00

Zoe Heller, What Was She Thinking; Notes on a Scandal, 2003. Narrated by a dreadful controlling woman who is telling the story of a total flake of another woman, there are no redeeming qualities in either of them and yet the book is compulsive reading. Or listening. It certainly is perceptive and well written but it's not a pleasant experience.

Bought this book yesterday, Spinning Wool, beyond the basics by Anne Field, 2010. It's a beautiful book that I've had from the library, hope it will help me learn to spin.

I did enjoy listening to Michael Robotham's first mystery, The Suspect, 2005. A detective, Joe O'Loughlin, really a London psychologist, loves his job and loves his family but he's got troubles; Parkinson's and someone trying to destroy his life. Good plot, good characters.

Good book, not-so-good book

2011-10-07T14:05:00.000-07:00

The Sister Brothers by Patrick DeWitt, 2011, may be up for many awards but I sure didn't like it. Listened to most of it and finally gave up because I didn't find it interesting in any way. I don't get it.

But I listened to Trustee from the Toolroom, Nevil Shute's last book written in 1960 and loved it. Read it over 40 years ago so I knew the story but what a welcome relief after that other book.

Finished Old Flames so I started my last Frederick Troy book, A Little White Death, by John Lawton. Who knows when he wrote it. Early 2000s I think. The poor guy has TB now and is going crazy in a sanatorium in the early 60s. I like the way the plots meander around and you get this story, that story and finally things come together.

Also started Michael Ondaajte's latest book, The Cat's Table, 2011 and I like it so far.

And then the library book I loved, I thought it was a book for adults but it's not, it's for kids. Beautiful photos and a great story, in which the black Labrador's true worth is revealed. What's not to like? Meet the Dogs of Bedlam Farm by Jon Katz, 2011.

books

2011-09-23T13:25:00.000-07:00

Finally tripped on the summer book that I listened to and forgot, In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin by Erik Larson, 2011. With a title like that, no wonder I forgot. It was pretty good, if a bit long to listen to. An American ambassador in Berlin during Hitler's rise. Interested to read about Berlin as beautiful.

Listened to the first of Tess Geritsen's myteries this week, The Surgeon, because I've been watching the TV show. Book is too bloody and gruesome for me, I skipped over all the guts and blood parts. Don't think I'll read any more of her books. It's a good enough mystery, just too gory for me.

Just started The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt, 2011. Not sure about it, but it seems alright so far. Set in 1851 right in the middle of the California gold rush, the story of two infamous brothers Charlie and Eli Sisters who set out on a mission by the commodore from Oregon City to apprehend and kill Hermann Kermit Warm.

Just about finished John Lawton's book, Old Flames, and it's very good. I do like his writing very much.

Just started a good memoir by Gail Caldwell, Let's Take the Long Way Home, 2011. She is writing about her friendship with Caroline Knapp - who wrote A Pack of Two - a book I bought a long time ago, because she was a drinker and a dog lover. This is a very good book.

books

2011-08-30T11:53:00.000-07:00

Listened to Sing You Home, 2011, by Jodi Picoult and it was good. Long but entertaining but I hated the music tracks - it's offensive to have someone chose music for you. Infertility issues and who has rites to the embryos and gay and Christian rites all come into this book. I almost stopped because the born again stuff but persevered through it and it was worth it.

A New Culture of Learning, 2011, by John Seely Brown and Douglas Thomas is good. I'm reading it for work but by choice. Interesting stuff.

Robert Goddard writes great stories, his latest, Blood Count, 2011 has got a hold of me.

The Blue Light Project by Timothy Taylor, 2011 was good. Not as good as Stanley Park was, but still, pretty good. Interesting to read about city art and those people who use the city as trapeze props. Three main characters; Eve, a former Olympian, Rabbit, a street artist and Thom Pegg, a disgraced former investigative journalist are all interesting and believable. The hostage taking part is there for some reason but was not that interesting.

Knitting

2011-08-16T14:28:00.000-07:00

2 Kate Davies items:
Hat for Mum and sweater for me

Some books

2011-08-16T14:16:00.000-07:00

Finished James Fitzgerald's book, What Disturbs Our Blood: A Son's Quest to Redeem the Past, 2010 and it was good. A bit long and very sad but interesting. He writes well about his grandfather, famous but forgotten because of his suicide and mental health problems.

Just listened to Sebatian Faulk's Birdsong, something I've been meaning to read for years. It is a very good book, what hell those trenches were in WWI. Good writer, good story. He starts it off so innocently in 1910, with English Stephen Wraysford living in France, entangling himself with the wife of his host. Then bam, into the trenches you go.

Started another John Lawton book and really like it. Old Flames, written in 1997. Troy gets to hang out with Nikita Khrushchev in 1956. Should be interesting.

The latest Kurt Wallander book, The Troubled Man by Henning Mankell was odd. Don't know if it's the translation or the book - but the characters seemed flat, especially Kurt and his daughter. It's good there will be no more.

good mystery

2011-08-01T10:09:00.000-07:00

The Janus Stone: A Ruth Galloway Mystery by Elly Griffiths, 2010, second book of Norfolk set mysteries. Very likeable characters, Ruth puts up with no nonsense and gets into all kinds of trouble. The plot is a bit bizarre but the people are great.

Listened to another book en route to Victoria and back but cannot remember what it was!

read "There Are Things I Want You to Know" about Stieg Larsson and Me by Eva Barbrielsson, 2011. Not a great book, but interesting to read about their political life and life in Sweden.

sweetgeorgia socks and scarf progress

2011-07-12T14:23:00.001-07:00

Scarf is nearly done:

Yarn from SweetGeorgia in Vancouver BC, for these socks.

good book, awful book

2011-07-06T06:37:00.000-07:00

Start with the good book, The Hand That First Held Mine by Maggie O'Farrell, 2011. Two stories that eventually come together set in London in the 50s and now. Good writer, realistic depictions of people and babies. Liked this book.

Listened to 9/10 of A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan and do not understand why anyone would like it. I kept hoping it would get better but have finally given up. Characters I don't care about, plot that does not engage, I don't care about the manipulations of time. Glad to have left it.

Atlantic and a mystery

2011-07-03T05:54:00.000-07:00

Finished listening to Simon Winchester's Atlantic, 2011, read by Simon himself. Good to listen to, very interesting book but I needed the visual supports - the maps, the photos - of the places he was talking about. What an interesting life he has been having.

New-to-me mystery writer whose protagonist is named Ruth, so of course I like her. Elly Griffith is her pseudonym (her grandmother's name) and I did like the book: The Crossing Places: A Ruth Galloway Mystery, 2010. Archeology features in the wild saltmarshes of Norfolk’s north coast

3 other things I should be knitting but doing this instead..

2011-07-02T16:14:00.001-07:00

Pattern is Stephen West's Clockwork

3 squares

2011-06-14T06:46:00.001-07:00

Two mysteries

2011-06-11T06:01:00.000-07:00

The latest Jacqueline Winspear is good, A Lesson in Secrets, 2011. Like comfort food, good to return to familiar characters performing up to speed. Maisie Dobbs solves the problems as usual.

Listened to my first Craig Russell, Blood Eagle, 2005. Pretty grizzly, but a good mystery. I'll probably listen to more by him.

Just started listening to Atlantic by Simon Winchester, 2010. Interesting book. He's a good writer.

mediocre book, good book, new square

2011-06-04T09:34:00.001-07:00

Night Work by Steve Hamilton, 2006, was very mediocre. Don't know whether it was because I hated the reader or if it was the book. More the reader I think. It read like a ho-hum cop show, barely kept my interest. Thank god it was short.

The good book is by Diane Ackerman, One Hundred Names for Love, 2011. A non-fiction book about her husband's, Paul West, stroke. He loses all language, and she is going to help to bring that back but I have not got that far. Interesting book.

A good book and a not-so-good book

2011-05-31T07:15:00.000-07:00

Left Neglected by Lisa Genova, 2011 is a very good book. It feels like you are inside the head of someone with left neglect. She writes well, researches well. A memorable book with a realisitic plot and good characters.

I gave up on Irma Voth - read 2/3 of it. Written by Miriam Toews in 2011, it just did not hold my interest. I liked her first two books; A Boy of Good Breeding and Summer of my Amazing Luck a lot, but didn't think much of the one that got all the attention; A Complicated Kindness. I really liked the book she wrote about her father, Swing Low. Irma Voth is just not engaging.

first square

2011-05-31T06:30:00.001-07:00

a hat and some books

2011-05-23T10:46:00.000-07:00

Hat designed by Kate Davies, of Needled. Love the pattern.

The Discomfort Zone: A Personal History by Jonathan Franzen, 2005, was interesting if a bit uneven. Beginning and ending are most interesting, middle a bit dull. He writes well. Interesting to read about his mother.

Finished listening to Dark Fire by C.J. Sansom, 2007. Sure wish that man used a more ruthless editor. It's a good mystery but too long, way too long. Set in London, Matthew Shardlake, the hunchbacked 16th-century attorney, returns in book 2 of a series. I'll probably read more, but read not listen so that I can skip bits.

Enjoyed Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda, 2010. Easy to read, believable characters and a realistic ending.

socks, shawl, hat - recent knitting projects

2011-05-13T09:46:00.001-07:00

Friendly, Jerome, Rusty

2011-05-03T14:35:00.000-07:00

ah, my childhood favs

It was posted on facebook, I had to copy it.

Just finished listening to John Lee reading John Banville's The Sea, 2006. My goodness, that man can write. Beautiful language. Not a happy-go-lucky writer though, it's pretty heavy going but it is a very good book. I may have to read it in print. Great reader but it goes by too fast.

finished Jane Urquhart's book too, Sanctuary Line, also a very good book. Very effective, the way she weaves memory, family, geography with the here and now.

And I'm almost finished another John Lawton book, Black Out. I do like this writer.

Poems as novel

2011-04-26T06:19:00.000-07:00

Fishtailing by Wendy Philips, 2010 is a novel written in poems. The author is an English teacher in Richmond. Each character writes poems to create a sad but good story. She captures high school accurately. Very good book that stays with you.

Listened to Ian Rankin's The Complaints in my car even though I read it last year when it came out. I think I liked it better as an audiobook, or maybe it's just that enough time has gone by to separate more from Rebus and accept these new characters.

In the car right now is another mystery, translated from Swedish, Gallow's Bird by Camilla Lackberg, 2011. A woman is found dead, apparently the victim of a tragic car crash. It's the first in a spate of seemingly inexplicable accidents in Tanumshede for detective Patrik Hedstrom and his colleagues. It's a good mystery, likable characters, entertaining plot with lots of twists.

Jane Urquhart's Sancutary Line is good so far. As Amazon says ""...The cultivated landscape of this farm has decayed so completely now, it is difficult to believe that the fields and orchards ever existed outside my own memories, my own imagination... ". With these opening lines Liz Crane, forty-year old entomologist and the central voice in Jane Urquhart's new, engrossing and most personal novel invites us into her world and into her mind. Having recently returned to the old Butler homestead and studying monarch butterfly behaviour at the nearby Sanctuary Research Centre, Liz feels she needs to reconnect with all that is familiar from the past."

Tiger

2011-03-27T09:46:00.000-07:00

The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival by John Valliant, 2010, is an excellent book. Well researched, interesting wanderings off on different topics but the main story is always there and keeps you reading. It's a story about an Amur tiger in the far east region of Russia, and how endagered they are. Very good book.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Video of John talking about the book

Listening to The King's Speech by Mark Logue, 2010, Lionel's grandson. Very interesting book, Lionel must have been quite a man, as was the king.

Just started and like The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu 2008. Main character runs a shop Washington, D.C. He's an Ethiopian immigran,t Stepha Stephanos regularly meets with fellow African immigrants Ken the Kenyan and Joe from the Congo. Their favorite game is matching African nations to coups and dictators, as they consider how their new immigrant expectations measure up to the reality of life in America after 17 years. It's going to be sad, I know, but it's well written..

purple socks and pink cables

2011-03-13T13:26:00.001-07:00

free form cables

pattern I like

not a good book

2011-03-02T18:20:00.000-08:00

The Ape House by Sara Gruen, 2010, was a disappointment. Nothing much to like about it, the plot is far fetched, the characters a pain. I liked the apes. Hard to believe she wrote Water for Elephants, a book I liked very much. I would not recommend the Ape House to anyone. Her first book was dribble though so maybe she's a very inconsitent writer.

I am really enjoying This Book is Overdue though. Written by Marilyn Johnson, 2010, it's a non-fiction book about libraries and librarians as they have changed moving into the digital age. Brings out my wish-I-was-a-librarian urges again.

And I've started another John Lawton book. I do like this man - or likes the way her writes at any rate. Bluffing Mr. Churchill it's titled in the UK, not here. Riptide here, I think. The best part of his books is it doesn't matter what order you read them in. I like that.

Socks and mysteries

2011-02-20T06:14:00.000-08:00

freeform cables

Favorite pattern

Just finished Michael Robotham's Bleed for Me, 2010. It was pretty good, but I didn't like his dog getting tortored and killed. Skipped through part of it, didn't hold my interest enough to read completely once the dog was knocked off.

But, I am really enjoying John Layton's Troy mysteries. Listened to Second Violin 2009, and am now reading the first in the series, Black Out, 1995. He jumps all over in time, so it does not matter where you start. I read his latest book first, A Lily of the Field. Like his sense of humour, his reference to growing leeks and potatoes, the music and musicians and his odd detective.
This site (his blog) lists the whole series.
Wikipedia gives an outline too
* Black Out (1995), ISBN 978-0670857678

The story begins during the last stages of the London Blitz in 1944. Troy is assigned to find out who's murdering German scientists who've been secretly smuggled out of Germany and into Britain. Later, Troy tracks his suspect to Berlin in 1948, during the Berlin Blockade. Along the way, he tangles with British and American spy agencies, a Russian spy and a British femme fatale.

* Old Flames (1996), ISBN 978-0871138644

Troy, because he speaks Russian, is assigned to guard Russian Secretary-General Krushchev, during his 1956 visit to Britain. Along with these duties, Troy investigates the death of an ex-navy diver during a curiously botched spy mission.

* A Little White Death (1998), ISBN 978-0753822616

The third Troy novel uses the historical events of the Profumo Affair and the Kim Philby spy scandal of the early 1960s as a jumping-off point for a fictionalized version in which Troy, now risen to Commander in Scotland Yard, discovers that an apparent suicide (of the fictional Stephen Ward-analog character) was really a murder. A second apparent suicide thickens the plot. Most of the historical characters get fictional equivalents, a few appear as themselves, and Christine Keeler becomes a pair of sisters. In the closing Historical Note, however, Lawton explains his historical inspirations and cautions that "This is not a roman à clef." Concurrent with the scandal/spy/murder plot, Lawton interleaves some cultural history on the beginnings of 'swinging London'. The novel's title is a double entendre, referring both to the pills used in the second suspicious suicide and to Troy's life-and-career-threatening battle against tuberculosis.

* Riptide (2001), ISBN 978-0297643456 (Published in the United States (2004) as Bluffing Mr. Churchill)

Lawton backtracks chronologically to the early days of World War II, before Black Out.

* Blue Rondo (2005) (Published in the United States as Flesh Wounds, ISBN 978-0871136985)

Set in the late 1950s.

* Second Violin (2007)[3], ISBN 978-0297851967

Another "prequel" to Black Out, this time back to 1938. The main protagonist this time is Frederick Troy's older brother Rod, working as a reporter for his father's newspaper. Rod travels to Vienna, just in time to witness Kristallnacht. Returning to Britain, he is sent to an internment camp on the Isle of Man because of his Austrian birth and failure to pursue naturalization. During the Battle of Britain, he is freed to become a fighter pilot. Meanwhile, brother Fred investigates the murders of several East End rabbis. The parallel stories eventually converge at the final denouement.

* A Lily of the Field (2010), ISBN 978-0802119568

This novel tells two linked stories, differing in tone and structure, but heading to the same conclusion. The first part, "Audacity", is set in the years 1934-46 in Europe, and has only the briefest mention of Frederick Troy. It is, essentially, the back-story to all that follows. The second part, "Austerity", set in London in 1948, is a more familiar Inspector Troy murder investigation, that, almost inevitably, spills over into Cold War espionage.[4]

John Lawton

2011-01-31T12:10:00.000-08:00

Read A Lily in the Field by John Lawton, 2010, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Started reading it in paper from the library and then bought the Kindle version to finish it. Reading etext is becoming comfortable. I am now listening to Blue Rhondo in my car and like that format as well. Enjoyable books. I've ordered the first few of his books from ABE Books. They were cheap but the postage was not! I like this writer's sense of humour, mix of characters, the era he is writing about - WWII and the 50's leading into the 60's.

I'm nearly finished Annabel by Kathleen Winter, 2010. It's good. Hard to read about a character that nobody will tell the truth to, but it's a good book. What a nightmare it would be to be born a hermaphrodite.

fishy mitts and brown socks

2011-01-16T05:58:00.000-08:00

fingerless mitts to be

2011-01-15T11:44:00.000-08:00

Finished listening to Ireland: a Novel by Frank Delaney, 2008. A very long book but easy to attend to, many different stories woven into a sort of main story line. He's a bit full of himself, this author, but he does write well and read well.

Enjoyed reading Dog Tags, by the dog-loving author David Rosenfelt, 2010. Entertaining mystery, not very deep but the dogs are good and the characters are likable enough.

In the middle of Matter with Morris, by David Bergen, 2010 and am not sure what I think of it. I'll finish it but it isn't great. Good writing but the main character is a pain so his reflections on life after the death of his son are not that interesting.

Oogy

2011-01-03T12:12:00.000-08:00

How could I have forgotten to post Oogy: The Dog Only a Family Could Love by Larry Levin, 2010? It's a good book. About a great dog. Well written.

from Amazon.ca
"In 2002, Larry Levin and his twin sons, Dan and Noah, took their terminally ill cat to the Ardmore Animal Hospital outside Philadelphia to have the beloved pet put to sleep. What would begin as a terrible day suddenly got brighter as the ugliest dog they had ever seen--one who was missing an ear and had half his face covered in scar tissue--ran up to them and captured their hearts. The dog had been used as bait for fighting dogs when he was just a few months old. He had been thrown in a cage and left to die until the police rescued him and the staff at Ardmore Animal Hospital saved his life. The Levins, whose sons are themselves adopted, were unable to resist Oogy's charms, and decided to take him home."

Ireland and mysteries

2011-01-02T09:50:00.000-08:00

Finished Started Early, Took my Dog, Kate Atkinson's latest, and liked it very much. The mystery is really in the background, the characters make the book. She ends with my favorite Dickinson poem, Hope. The title is from another of her poems.

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

Read Mark Bilingham's latest as well, and liked it. From the Dead, 2010. Glad I read most of these before the TV series because my Thorne and TV's Thorne are not the same. It's a good mystery.

In the car, listening to Frank Delaney, 20087, Ireland: a novel, a rambling book of stories told by a story teller. It's good though, and the author is reading it and reading it well. This book is better listened to I think.

I am mostly finished and very much liking Ryan Knighton's latest book, C'mon Papa: Dispatches from a Dad in the Dark, 2010. He writes well, about becoming a new father as a blind person. It's a page turner - a good continuation of Cockyed. I hope he keeps writing.

scarf

2010-12-22T11:42:00.000-08:00

good reader

2010-12-19T09:30:00.000-08:00

Just listened to Dear American Airlines, 2009, by Jonathan Miles and really enjoyed it. It supposed to be a letter from a disgruntled passenger Bennie Ford, a fifty-three-year-old failed poet turned translator who is waiting in O'Hare airport forever, trying to get to his daughter's wedding. A grumpy, believable, funny, very flawed characater that you are routing for and it's a well written story. The reader did a great job.

Mark Billingham's latest is good too; From the Dead, 2010.

Chet the dog

2010-12-10T10:43:00.000-08:00

Listened to the second and third books featuring Chet, the dog; Thereby Hangs a Tail: A Chet and Bernie Mystery and To Fetch a Thief, by Spencer Quinn. Enjoyed them both, Chet is a faithful hound and good dog detective.

I'm about to give up on Cities of Refuge by Michael Helm, 2010. 3/4 of the way through and it is just not holding me. The writing is good but the story is dull, don't care what happens.

But, I am really liking World and Town by Gish Jen, 2010. Really good writing, interesting novel. Hattie is half Chinese, half American and restarting her live in a small town. She's lost her best friend and her husband. A Cambodian family moves in next door, and an ex-lover moves to town.
As the review on Amazon says....
"What Hattie makes of this situation is at the center of a novel that asks deep and absorbing questions about religion, home, America, what neighbors are, what love is, and, in the largest sense, what “worlds” we make of the world."

And I'm half way through and really enjoying Kate Atkinson's latest, Started Early, Took My Dog, 2010. Features the retired cop Jackson Daley as a PI and another retired cop, Tracy and an past-it actor. Interesting characters. There is a dog of course, rescued by Jackson early in the book.

Books

2010-11-14T12:49:00.000-08:00

Finished Room by Emma Donoghue, 2010 and it was a good read. I kept riding past my morning biking while reading it, so it was definitely holding my attention. They got out of the room fairly early in the book, thank goodness, so it was possible to keep going. She does a good job of capturing a 5-year-olds perspective on the world.

Listened to Peter Robinson's latest book, Bad Boy, 2010. A good mystery, I like reading about the same characters caught in different dilemmas. His characters are interesting and believable.

The City and the City by China Mieville, 2009. Well this is an interesting mystery, set in two cities that occupy the same land, where everyone learns to see and "unsee" whichever population they belong to. It's a Sci-Fi mystery where the two strangely named Eastern Europeaon cities are superimposed on one another. Good writer and excellent reader - same person who read the Benjamin Black mysteries.

knitting scarves

2010-11-07T14:06:00.000-08:00

books

2010-11-06T06:21:00.000-07:00

Listened to Pat Barker's book Border Crossing, 2002, and thought it was perceptive. Someone wrote that they thought it was her best non-Ghost-Road book and I agree. I haven't thought her books, other than that great triology, have been so good but this one tackles a child killer and the people around him and is very good. Interesting book.

Reading the The Room by Emma Donoghue, 2010, and it has been hard to make myself read it. It's hard to read about someone in such an abused and cloisted situation. Her kid perspective is great though. I will keep reading.

Really like What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn, 2008. Switching between 1984 and 2003, about a little girl who goes missing after starting up her own detective agency. It's set mostly in a huge mall, with very believable characters you want to get to know.

books

2010-10-23T05:52:00.000-07:00

Listened to Jonathan Franzen's Freedom, 2010. The narrator was a bit grating and the story too long and the characters almost completely unlikable but he can write a good book. And timely, our planet heading into an overpopulated, polluted, navel-staring state - he brings it all in. Thank god my cats are indoor cats.

Per Petterson, I Curse the River of Time , 2010. I liked Out Stealing Horses a lot better, but this is a good book. His characters I like, he's gentle with his flawed people.

Curtains, Adventures in an Undertaker-in-Training, 2010 by Tom Jokinen is very good. It's a revelation, what happens to us in those places, and interesting to read about the state of the business. Good writer, very interesting book.

scarf I want to make

2010-10-06T05:51:00.000-07:00

Lucy Neatby pattern http://www.lucyneatby.com/

and my practice attempts so far.

Books - two mysteries, two novels

2010-10-03T05:46:00.000-07:00

Murderous Proession by Ariana Franklin, 2010. It's good but I am just not as interested in it as her first books. Seems to be how several series are affecting me these days. There are just too many other books I'd rather be reading. It's a good read, just not great.

I am really enjoying Emma Donoghue's Landing, 2007. Likable, interesting characters, from Dublin or from rural Ontario. She tells a good story. Looking forward to reading Room, up for the Booker, although I often hate those Booker books.

Generosity by Richard Powers, 2009. Interesting book, he keeps switching perspectives. Whose voice are we listening to? An off stage writer, the main character who is a writer teaching a writing class? Is happiness in our genetic code, to be manipulated?

Once a Spy by Keith Thompson, 2010. Charlie finds his father, Drummond, in the thoes of Alzheimer's, but then finds out he was a spy. A mad chase ensues, bodies flying, a wild tale. Not a great book but the humour around Alzheimer's is good.

Books

2010-09-02T14:40:00.000-07:00

My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult, 2009. Good, but hard to hear about the medical stuff. Believable characters. Didn't like the ending, needlessly melodramatic, but the book is worth reading.

The Past is a Foreign Country by Gianrico Carofiglio, 2010. I have really liked his other 3 books, mysteries set in Italy, this one is different. A bit dry, hard to connect with the main character, but it's good.

The Good Parents: A Novel, 2009, by Joan London is good. Nearly finished it, Australian writer. Moves around in time in the lives of a family of characters. She writes well.

summer books

2010-08-15T06:13:00.000-07:00

Tana French, Faithful Place, July 2010. First book read on an iPad. It's good but I think I liked her other two books better. Still, a good mystery, but I get tired of reading about drunks and the fallouts from alcohol.

Listened to Stone's Fall by Iain Pears, June 2010, in the car. Very long book. Would have preferred the print version, needed to go back and check dates and can't do that with the audio book. He's a good story teller though, interesting to move backwards in chunks in time. The prologue is set in 1951 and the first part is set in 1909, the second in 1891, and the last in 1867. Good plot, interesting characters, he keeps the question of Stone's Fall running in the background no matter which tale he is side-tracked on.

I am half way through David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet June 2010, and like it very much. I know nothing of the Dutch East India Company, nothing of Japan's history at all so it's interesting to read about. Good writer. Novel is set in 1799, on the island of Dejima in Nagasaki Bay. The Dutch East India Company is the sole trading point between Europe and the isolationist Japanese and Jacob de Zoet is a clerk given the task of finding corruption.

The Betrayal by Helen Dunmore, 2010, is on the Booker long list and I was inspired to read it because it's the only book on the list that looked interesting, or approachable, and Ian Rankin mentioned in a tweet that he had not read one of the long list Booker books. Me either, until now. This one is good. Set in 1952 in Leningrad, tells the story of the mobster government dominating everyone's lives. Andrei, a young hospital doctor and Anna, a nursery school teacher, are trying to live after nearly starving through the war. Good characters, good book.

summer knitting

2010-08-09T14:40:00.001-07:00

fours things on the go:

green cardigan

green alpaca mitt

blue sock, favorite Wendy pattern

Blue EZ Sweater

essays

2010-07-18T14:39:00.000-07:00

Finished a very good book of essays by Zadie Smith, called Changing My Mind, 2009. A real mixed bag of things, literary essays, movie reviews, going to the Oscars...Good book.

And finished Solar by Ian McEwan and really liked it. Have not liked many of his other books but I did really like this one. Such a scathing sense of humour.

Started a couple of new books, one on my iPad - a different kind of reading. The Help, by Kathryn Stockett, 2009. It's good. And I'm listening to the latest Maisie Dobbs mystery in the car, The Mapping Of Love And Death by Jacqueline Winspear, 2010. It's enjoyable too.

good book

2010-07-09T09:57:00.001-07:00

have yet to get the camera out to photo the latest knitting...
but just finished listening to Solar by Ian McEwan and thought it was a great book. Funny, in a very cutting and smart way. And the main character is so despicable but believable.

A Tortoise and a musician

2010-06-23T06:08:00.000-07:00

Listening to Nick Hornby's Juliet Naked, 2009, in the car. It's a tale of musicians and messy relationships and it's good - very Nick Hornby - but good. Very well read so it's an enjoyable listen.

Just started Come, Thou Tortoise by Jessica Grant, 2009. I think I will like it. Took me awhile to figure out the Tortoise has a voice. The main character, Audrey, flies home to St. John's to deal with family. Not sure where the tortoise is going to end up, she's back in Portland being looked after. Found a good video clip of the author talking about the book. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGzjzl57hjE

books

2010-06-16T06:12:00.000-07:00

Finished another pair of socks but no time for photos. In the car I had Benjamin Black's Elegy for April, 2010, playing and enjoyed it. Not sure why, it's as dark as all the others. Dark and cold in 1950's Dublin with alcoholic Quinn crashing his way through another dark inquiry. But like it I did.

Also finished the Tennis Partner by Abraham Verghese. I wish he had written more books. He writes very well. This one was hard to read at times, his descriptions of addiction being as raw as his descriptions of surgery are detailed. Good book set in El Paso in the early 90's. Found some good video clips on youtube of Abraham talking

And for a nice light change, I'm now listening to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and her niece, Annie Barrows, 2009. Very entertaining. So nice to read about book lovers.

Also reading Douglas Copeland's book on Marshall Mcluhan, in the Extraordinary Canadians series. There's a bit too much Douglas in there but it is interesting. What a strange person MM was.

a couple of abandoned mysteries

2010-05-31T06:18:00.000-07:00

Gave up on two, and cannot even remember the name of one of them, popular Swedish author. It was an audiobook and I could not stand the reader so skipped the final 3 CDs. The Laughing Policeman, by Per Wahloo, that's what it was. The other I was reading and it was due at the library. Pretty good but didn't hold me enough to finish it properly. The Last Child by John Hart, 2010.
I am listening to a good one though, the Brutal Telling by Louise Penny. Characters I am interested in, and Quebec, which I am interested in.

And I have other good books on the go: The Imperfectionists: A Novel by Tom Rachman . Just started and really like it. Good writer.

Finished My Own Country and really liked it. Such a good writer. I've started his other book, The Tennis Partner and like it too. An interesting man who writes about the people in his interesting life.

the never ending Northern Clemency

2010-05-16T06:11:00.000-07:00

Whew, thought it would never be over. 22 CDs to listen to the Northern Clemency. Not sure why I continued but I was ever hopeful I would start to like a character or be interested in what was happening. It doesn't even end, it just peters out. Very glad it is over.

Reading Love and Summer by William Trevor, 2010, a good writer but the book is odd though. It feels like he's writing about Ireland a century ago but I think it's supposed to be contemporary Ireland. Small town Ireland.

Books

2010-05-07T13:35:00.000-07:00

Half way through the Northern Clemency by Philip Hensher, a very long book. It's a good read but not sure I like it. I don't like any of the characters, and there are no animals in it. It's about 2 Sheffield UK families, in the 70s and 80s. Reads like literate coronation street. I doubt I will seek out another book by this author.

On the final pages of Long Time Coming by Robert Goddard, which is a good book. His plots are interesting, his characters likable. It moves between Antwerp in 1939 and London in 1976. A Jewish diamond trader fled Nazi Europe, leaving his priceless collection of Picasso paintings and diamonds with a friend who takes them to London. The boat he fled on sank, leaving no survivors. Where is the proof of forgery and why was Eldritch Swan in prison for 36 years?

Good books

2010-04-27T17:49:00.000-07:00

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, 2009. Very good book, the story told by our friend the grim reaper as he gathers many souls during WW II in Molching, Germany. Liesle is the main character and the thief. Characters you grow to love. Sad, but good.

My Own Country: A Doctor's Story by Abraham Verghese, 1995. I liked Cutting for Stone so much I bought the other two books he wrote. Here he tells the story of his return in the fall 1985 with his wife and newborn son to Johnson City, Tennessee, where he had done his internship and residence. He is the doctor of infectious diseases dealing with AIDS as it infects the small town. This is a well written memoir that reads like a novel.

And a good mystery, Beyond Reach by Graham Hurley. Again we are left wondering where Winter will end up. The doubting detective is good - does police action do more harm than good? Set in Portsmoth UK, DI Faraday seems to be questioning his career.

books

2010-04-16T13:50:00.000-07:00

A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore, 2009. Good novel, but disturbing. Good writer, main character a 20 year old US mid-westerner who meets a troubling boy friend, an aggravating employer. Race and terrorism sneak in. One of the characters puts her kids library books in the oven to kill the germs. What a concept!

Started reading Curtains: Adventures of an Undertaker-in-Training by Tom Jokinen, 2010, and really like it. Had to take it back to the library so I have ordered my own copy. What really happens to our bodies when we die? I will be finding out. The crematorium was an education already.

Also started P.D. James' non-fiction book written this year Talking About Detective Fiction. It's very interesting.

Socks

2010-04-11T16:06:00.000-07:00

not for me..

Good reads

2010-04-07T09:15:00.000-07:00

I finished Where the God of Love Hangs Out by Amy Bloom, 2009 and really liked it. It was groups of short stories. Think I will check out a novel by her. Also finished the Millenium trilogy by Stieg Larson and did so by listening to the whole thing, even though I had read The Girl with the Dragaon Tatoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire before. It really is one big book. So sad that he did not get to finish the series of 10 books that he had planned.

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest is the final act. Long but good.

Have almost finished A Pigeon and a Boy: A Novel by Meir Shalev, 2009. Two stories happening throughout the book, the tale of present day Yair Mendelsohn, a middle-aged Israeli tour guide who guides bird watchers. He recalls the story of a homing pigeon handler, nicknamed the Baby and how he was killed in the 1948 Israeli war of independence and, in his final moments, sent off one last pigeon. Good book. Interesting characters.

new mystery writer, new novelist

2010-03-18T06:03:00.000-07:00

The Business of Dying by Simon Kernick, 2002. Writer recommended to me by the owner of the mystery book store in Victoria, Chronicles of Crime. It was good and I want to read more by him. He's a bit brutal - lots of dead bodies. But good plot, good writing.

Where the God of Love Hangs Out by Amy Bloom, 2009. Really perceptive writer. Just started this book but I like it a lot. Not a novel but groups of connected stories.

socks

2010-03-12T06:17:00.001-08:00

too many mysteries

2010-02-18T06:00:00.000-08:00

3 that I have either stopped or skimmed the remainder. They are pretty good mysteries but I get bored with the plots.
The Dying Light by Henry Porter, 2009. Like an episode of Spooks, and well enough written but I sent it back to the library 2/3 of the way through. Never got back to Stardust by Joseph Kanon, leaving it half read.

Listened to The Scarecrow by Michael Connelly, 2009, but pushed the skip button for the last 3 CDs. Plot was too predictable and serial killers don't really interest me.

So am very happy to start two good books:
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese, 2009. Good writing, really good writing and interesting characters - twin sons Marion and Shiva Stone, born in a mission hospital in Ethiopia in the 1950s. Verghese is a doctor and writer and he writes very well. I may have to buy this book.

Barbara Kingsolver's latest novel The Lacuna, 2009. Not as appealing as her earlier novels and I've had a harder time getting into it, but it's good now. The main character is a boy - half Mexican - living in the 30's in Mexico with his wayward mother. So far he has been educated in the Three Muskateer's school of literature and is about to enter school for the first time at age 14.

mitts

2010-02-17T19:26:00.001-08:00

mitts for Mum, really nice sock wool that shrinks after a few washings so I'm not going to make any more socks of it.

Books

2010-02-05T18:26:00.000-08:00

Am enjoying The Bishop's Man by Linden MacIntyre 2009. Good novel, interesting topic. The flawed father tries to deal with the ramifications of spending years burying abuse scandals for his bishop.

Just listened to Old City Hall by Robert Rotenberg, 2009. A good legal mystery. Good characters, set in Toronto.

Half way through Stardust by Joseph Kanon, 2009. I have been liking it but am not sure I'll finish it. It is pretty good but other books are calling.

Socks and booties

2010-01-09T16:08:00.001-08:00

Colourful sock

purple sock

Booties for Laura

click on photo for bigger image

Books

2009-12-29T10:38:00.000-08:00

Extraordinary Canadians Lucy Maud Montgomery by Jane Urquhart 2009. Thoughtful book - well written. Interesting discussion of women writers, how they were dismissed as not real writers. Makes you want to go back and read all the books again.

Midnight Fugue by Reginald Hill, 2009. First books I've read by him, the TV series is certainly true to the books. It was good.

Listening to Dog On It: A Chet and Bernie Mystery in the car, by Spencer Quinn 2009 although that is a pseudonym. Very funny mystery, the dog is the narrator and he is a pretty goofy dog.

Started Beijing Coma by Ma Jian, 2009. Serious book. Well written, but may be too bleak to finish.

The Blue Shawl is done

2009-12-06T07:43:00.000-08:00

My first, and maybe last?, attempt at a shawl.

click on image to see larger view

2009-11-30T17:28:00.000-08:00

Hypothermia by Arnaldur Indridason, 2009. Good mystery. Indridason is an Icelandic writer of crime fiction, this is book number 6 of a series with Erlendur – the detective.

The Cello Suites: J. S. Bach, Pablo Casals, and the Search for a Baroque Masterpiece by Eric Siblin, 2009. Very interesting book, well written, he tells the story of the six suites composed for cello by J.S. Bach in the early 1700s. It's part history, part investigation, all music.

Just started Margaret Drabble's interesting book, The Pattern in the Carpet: A Personal History with Jigsaws 2009. I like it so far.

a book thief, some spies, and a piano teacher

2009-11-22T06:16:00.002-08:00

The man who loved books too much : the true story of a thief, a detective, and a world of literary obsession by Allison Hoover Bartlett, 2009. Very interesting - the story of a book thief who has absolutely no conscience and cons hard working book sellers out of expensive books.

Snakehead by Anthony Horowitz, 2008. A 14 year old, Alex Ryder, who keeps getting hired by MI 6 and plunged into extraordinary situations. Entertaining. Horowitz wrote Collision, recently on Masterpiece Mystery, and Foyle's War. Interesting combination of things to have written.

The Piano Teacher by Janice Lee, 2009. Set in Hong Kong during and after WW II, alternates between the two time periods. Good story, interesting to read about era.

books

2009-11-07T13:14:00.000-08:00

The boy in the moon : a father's search for his disabled son by Ian Brown, 2009. An excellent book, very well written. A page turner really as he looks at ethics and money and humanity and through it all, how much he loves his boy.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, 2007. Listening to this in the car. It's good, but he wears thin sometimes. He explores his Indianness, set near Spokane. Partly autobiographical.

Goldengrove, by Francine Prose, 2008. Good book, main character Niko surviving the death of her sister Margaret. Beautiful poem unlies the plot.
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) from Spring and Fall
to a young child

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By & by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep & know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What héart héard of, ghóst guéssed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

Books

2009-10-25T09:50:00.000-07:00

The Kindness of Women, 1993, by J.G. Ballard. Interesting, semi-autobiographical, about his life in England post-war. A good writer. Starts with him still in the POW camp outside Shanghai and ends with the making of the movie about that time, Empire of the Sun.

Justin Cartright's To Heaven by Water, 2009. Half way through and I think I like it. Finished it and liked it a lot. I like his writing, like the words he uses. Liked the characters too.

Am enjoying Mark Billingham's latest Thorne mystery; Blood Line, 2009.

Book

2009-10-07T06:25:00.000-07:00

Exit Orange and Red by Martyn Bedford, a novel about the steel manufacturing process in the UK, a huge mall, unions, journalism. Pretty good. 1997. I bought this second hand from the UK, must have been one of Nick Hornby's recommendations.

Listened to A Big Little Life: A Memoir Of A Joyful Dog by Dean Koontz in the car. A golden retriever, a CCI dog, she sounds like a very well behaved creature and much loved dog. She had a bath once a week! Rebus gets a bath twice a year. Oh well.

The Anthologist continues to be really good. And I started The Kindness of Women, 1993, by J.G Ballard and it is very good. It is the sequel to his autobiographical Empire of the Sun.

September knitting

2009-10-02T18:58:00.000-07:00

my favourite sock pattern so far. Green socks.

Some colourful socks

The blue blob gets slowly bigger..

Books

2009-09-27T05:48:00.000-07:00

Your Sad Eyes And Unforgettable Mouth by Edeet Ravel, 2008. It's good, but not as good as the Tel Aviv Trilogy she wrote; 1. Ten Thousand Lovers (2003), 2. Look for Me (2004) 3. A Wall of Light. They were really good.

I've started 2666 by Roberto Bolano, 2008 for the second time. This time it is the huge CD version. I keep thinking about giving up but it is a good book.

Listened to Open Arms by Marina Endicott and it felt incomplete - unfinished and with things missing.

just started The Anthologist: A Novel by Nicholson Baker 2009 and I really like it.

Mysteries

2009-09-04T06:19:00.000-07:00

Finally got back to The Likeness by Tana French and thought it was a good engrossing mystery. Perfect escape book. Now in the middle of The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson. Too bad he died, but sure glad he left the three books he wrote. This one is helping to keep the looming school year out of my head.

Knitting - socks and mitts

2009-08-26T16:23:00.000-07:00

New mitts for Mum. Beautiful wool bought at Cumberland yarn store.

Blue socks finished. Mocha likes them.

Books

2009-08-25T05:59:00.000-07:00

I am enjoying Finding Nouf by Zoe Ferraris, a literary mystery set in Saudi Arabia. Palestinian Nayir al-Sharqi investigates the death of Nouf with the help of Katya who works in the women's section of the state medical examiner's office. Interesting to read about women who are so restricted and controlled by a male religious state.

Also really like Through Black Spruce by Joseph Boyden. I have put off reading this because I liked Three Day Road so much, but this book is also very good.

Gave up on a couple of audio books. One was boring - a mystery - and the other (Kyra) I could not stand the reader.

Books

2009-08-08T17:26:00.000-07:00

Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
She captures high school well, telling the tale of a shooting spree that took 19 minutes. Very sad but worth reading.

Dirt Music by Tim Winton written in 2002 is another good book. He writes well about people and Australia.

and a mystery, Redbrest by Jo Nesbo, Norwegian writer. It's pretty good, but not great.

New sock, a shawl and some spinning

2009-08-06T14:52:00.000-07:00

Blue socks - with sock yarn that I dyed.

The beginning of a shawl, which will one day hopefully look like this

The first balls of wool. Progress is still slow, but the wheel is good.

excellent book

2009-07-29T12:02:00.000-07:00

Breath, by Tim Winton, an Aussie writer. Very good writer, why have I not read him before? Breath is not a long book but it is a great novel.

The new spinning wheel and latest socks

2009-07-26T11:15:00.001-07:00

bought at Birkeland Wool, an Ashford Kiwi - Single Drive - Natural. Progress is slow.

the latest pair of socks. That same wonderful wool/alpaca/nylon from KnitPicks

Good book

2009-07-25T17:32:00.000-07:00

Murder In Amsterdam by Ian Buruma, 2007 is an excellent book, very well written. He takes a comprehensive look at what was going on around Theo van Gogh in 2004 (shot and stabbed on an Amsterdam street by a young Moroccan radical)

Buruma returned to the Netherlands to write this book, after 30 years of working away. His parents were English (German/Jewish) and Dutch. His perspective is interesting.

Books

2009-07-23T13:45:00.000-07:00

Somewhere Towards The End by Diana Athill, 2009 Memoir of an old woman, 89. Interesting, she was an editor until she was 75. She likes dogs too.

Skim Mariko Tamaki, 2009, novel, Canadian, graphic novel, about a 16 year old girl. Pretty good. Not wild about graphic novels but this one is well done.

In the car, Nineteen Minutes. Many CDs, not sure I'm going to make it all the way through. On CD # 6 now.

Sweater finished

2009-07-19T13:06:00.000-07:00

odd sweater, but maybe odd enough to be o.k.

Books

2009-07-13T09:21:00.000-07:00

Really enjoyed Stasiland: True Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall by Anna Funder, an Australian journalist.

in the middle of A Thousand years of good prayers : stories by Yiyun Li and am liking it.

also in the middle of Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

and one of Henning Mankell's Walander mysteries, The White Lioness

summer 09 knitting

2009-07-13T09:16:00.001-07:00

I finished my first pair of toe up socks. Loved the wool, bought at KnitPicks

I am running out of wool for my hand dyed sweater :-(

sweater, a sock and some mitts

2009-06-18T18:27:00.001-07:00

Back of hand-dyed wool sweater

mitts for Robin

first toe up sock, for practice

Knitting

2009-05-30T10:12:00.000-07:00

What's on the needles now:

Vest using KnitPicks pattern

my mitts made of purple wool.

Robin's mitts made from recycled wool from her sweater

What I am reading now

2009-05-26T06:13:00.000-07:00

Four or five books at a time, as usual;

Archimedes Codex by Reviel Netz and William Noel. Wikipedia entry on the Archimedes Palimpsest

The Dead Hour by Denise Mina

Shakespeare wrote for money by Nick Hornby

Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo Van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance by Ian Burumba

The thing about life is that one day you'll be dead by David Shields

and in the car, on the CD player:

The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb

Berlin Noir trilogy by Philip Kerr - his earlier trilogy about Bernhard Gunther

* March Violets. London: Viking, 1989. ISBN 0-670-82431-3
* The Pale Criminal. London: Viking, 1990. ISBN 0-670-82433-X
* A German Requiem. London: Viking, 1991. ISBN 0-670-83516-1