Some books

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

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

Scarf is nearly done:









Yarn from SweetGeorgia in Vancouver BC, for these socks.

good book, awful book

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

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..

Pattern is Stephen West's Clockwork

3 squares