Tiger

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

free form cables




pattern I like

not a good book

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

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

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

fingerless mitts to be

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.