Happy New Year!

Here we are - almost halfway through the first month of 2012. I've been reading and knitting  and baking for the past two weeks, and I've finished one wonderful book and I'm partway through a second wonderful book.


The finished book is The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer. It's a long, harrowing 758 pages of terrific writing. The story of Andras and Clara in Paris and Budapest before and during WWII is a romantic tale, but the undertone of the coming horror is always there. I kept thinking of Ravel's La Valse with it's underlying theme of approaching war. I learned so much about Hungary during the war - things never taught in school! The idea that although you were Hungarian by birth - you never really belonged as a Hungarian, if you were also Jewish. I suppose it was that way in all the countries in Europe. I had never thought of it in quite that way. It made it so easy for Hitler. The Hungarians, Poles - the people of all those countries felt that the Jewish people didn't really "belong."  Even England - and the USA. 


So this is a book I recommend strongly. Thank you, daughter, for my Christmas gift!

Did Not Finish

I try to finish the books I begin, but occasionally find that the stories are not to my liking, and decide to put the book aside. I had read Justin Cronin's The Summer Guest and enjoyed it very much, so was looking forward to reading his much-acclaimed The Passage. I read about 75 pages and realized that it was going to be a futuristic story about world-changing events that sounded pretty awful to me. So I stopped reading and handed it off to Bill who likes books of that sort. We'll see what he thinks of it!

I recently received Elizabeth George's latest book with Lynley and Havers from The Book Depository. Having read a few favorable reviews I decided it would be next on my list. I'm now well into it, and think it will be a Finished book, rather than a DNF!

On another topic Bill and I had a very nice trip last week to the middle part of Oregon. We stopped to take a picture of the Weddle covered bridge in Sweet Home, and then spent the night in Sisters. Don't you love Oregon city names? The next day we traveled to Bend and another covered bridge. (Bill is determined to photograph all of Oregon's covered bridges!) That night we went to the little village of Dufur. Dufur is in the wheat area of Oregon about fifteen miles south of the Columbia River. We stayed in the old hotel there that has been refurbished, and is very nice.

I wrote this posting over a year ago, and somehow never got back to it. Talk about DNF!

The 2011 Books

Here is the list of books I've read this year. I haven't listed the ones I didn't finish, and they aren't listed in any order. I've not reviewed some of them, and don't intend to do reviews anymore. The fact that I read them suggests that I liked them well enough!


1-The Postmistress - Sarah Blake
2-The Water's Lovely - Ruth Rendell
3-Before the Frost - Henning Mankel
4-The Red Door - Charles Todd
5-Mr. Rosenblum Dreams in English - Natasha Solomons
6-The Black Cat  - Martha Grimes
7-Necessary As Blood - Deborah Crombie
8-A Lonely Death - Charles Todd
9-Haunted Ground - Erin Hart
10-The Draining Lake - Arnaldur Indridason
11-The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett
12-Hanna's Daughters - Marianne Fredriksson
13-Live Bait - P.J. Tracy
14-Astrid and Veronika - Linda Olsson
15-Heaven is High - Kate Wilhelm
16-Arms and The Women - Reginald Hill
17-An Incomplete Revenge - Jacqueline Winspear
18-Raven Black - Anne Cleeves
19The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott -Kelly O'Connor McNees
20-A Soft Place to Land - Susan Rebecca White
21-As Always Julia - Joan Reardon
22-The More Deceived - David Roberts
23-The Tapestry of Love - Rosy Thornton
24-The Spice Box - Lou Jane Temple
25-Voices - Arnaldur Indridason
26-A Rare Interest in Corpses - Ann Granger
27-Fearful Symmetry - Morag Joss
28-A Change In Altitude - Anita Shreve
29-Bury Your Dead - Louise Penny
30-The Season of Second Chances - Diane Meier
31-Whistling in the Dark - Lelsey Kagen
32-Up at the Villa - W. Somerset Maugham
33-Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel
34-The Tiger in the Smoke - Margery Allingham
35-Breaking Silence - Linda Castillo
36-These Lovers Fled Away - Howard Spring
37Two Rivers - T. Greenwood
38-Mind's Eye - Hakan Nesser
39-Other People's Children - Joanna Trollope
40-The King of Lies - John Hart
41-Blood Harvest - S.J. Bolton
42-Tomorrow River - Lesley Kagen
43-I see You Everywhere - Julia Glass
44-Silence of the Grave - Arnaldur Indridason
45-The Lacuna - Barbara Kingsolver
46-A Trick of the Light - Louise Penny
47-The Redbreast - Jo Nesbo 
48-Nemesis - Jo Nesbo
 49-The Devil's Star - Jo Nesbo
50-Cloud Chamber - Michael Dorris
51-Two For Sorrow - Nicola Upson
52-Hypothermia - Arnaldur Indridason
53-Shoot to Thrill - P.J. Tracy
54-Every Last One - Anna Quindlen
55-White Nights - Ann Cleeves
56-Borkmann's Point - Hakan Nesser
57-A Year on Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball
58 - Sing You Home - Jodi Picoult
59 -B urnt Mountain - Anne Rivers Siddons
60 - The American Heiress - Dasiy Goodwin
61 - The Girl Who Fell From the Sky - Heidi W. Durrow
62 - At Home on Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball
63 - Letters from Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball
64 - An Expert in Murder - Nicola Upson
65 - Turn of Mind - Alice La Plante
66 - Red Bones - Ann Cleeves
67 - A Night of Long Knives - Rebecca Cantrell
68 - The Ice Princess - Camilla Lackberg
69 - Death in the Garden - Elizabeth Ironside

Autumn in New York

We spent a week at Lake George in New York several years ago when we were in the area for our nephew's wedding. This was the sight that greeted us one day when we went for a drive around the lake.

Dinosaurs!

The new viewing building at Dinosaur National Park, Utah

The first thing you notice when entering.

And then you turn and look at the wall.

The discovery of this mound of bones must have been astounding.

There are hundreds of bones from many different dinosaurs.

This whole wall area is covered with dinosaur bones - just where they were found.

The old Ranger building where you get a parking pass, buy books!, and replicas of dinosaur bones.

This is a trip everyone should try to make. An amazing collection of bones and a walk back in time.

Fall Color - Steamboat Springs, Colorado

 The leaves were almost gone on many of the trees, but we were able to climb even higher to get some pictures. Most of the hillsides looked gray - the aspen trunks from a distance are very gray. The small scrub oak added a bit of color.

Add caption

These pictures were taken on the trail and in the parking lot at Fish Creek Falls. The other camera got a picture or two of the falls, and I'll post them later - if they're worth posting!

Travel and Books

We have returned to the coast from our trip to Nebraska and Colorado. It was good seeing the families in Nebraska, but the time has come for us to stop driving such long distances. It was very tiring because we haven't "right good sense" as my grandmother used to say, and we go farther each day with ten hours of driving - not smart! So we have made the decision to only go two days of driving from home from now on. The scattered families will just have to come see us!

I did get a lot of reading done, so have some short reviews of the books.


1) A Trick of the Light - Louise Penny - I think she just gets better and better with her tales of Three Pines village in Quebec, and the murderous goings-on there. Trick tells the story of an art critic's death, and the suspects are all the villagers! I enjoyed this book on my NOOK and was sorry when it ended, but Penny has already written the next book, and has started on another, so I'll have at least two more to read in the future.


2 and 3) The Redbreast and The Devil's Star - Jo Nesbo - I hadn't realized that the Harry Hole books should be read in sequence, and I read Nemesis, the second book, on my NOOK before reading Redbreast. So I knew something of what was going to happen in Redbreast. It was a great beginning to Nesbo's stories, and not spoiled by my reading Nemesis first. The Devil's Star follows Nemesis, and made me anxious to read the next in the series. Now I find that there is one book before Redbreast! These are pretty gritty stories, but I like the pace and most of the main characters.


4) Cloud Chamber - Michael Dorris - I had only read Yellow Raft in Blue Water by Dorris, so wasn't sure if this would be as good, but I did like it. The plot follows a family from Ireland to Kentucky to California and on to Montana. It is told in the voices of the various members of the family - some are good people, but some are greedy and not anyone you'd want to know!


5) Two for Sorrow - Nicola Upson - The second mystery with Josephine Tey as the main character. I was surprised to find out who the murderer was, and the story - concerning baby farmers in the early 20th century who murdered newborns rather than finding adoptive homes for them - is based on actual case histories. These books are set in Britain between the two world wars - as are the Maisie Dobbs books - and I find them very interesting and good reads.


6) Hypothermia - Arnaldur Indridason - Erlandur is off again solving a suicide that everyone wishes he would just leave alone. And he is still worrying about missing persons - especially his brother whose bones have never been found. Very good - and read on NOOK.


7) Our Kind of Traitor - John le Carre - Audio Book - It has been years since I last read a le Carre book, but we bought the audio book in Nebraska for the long drive home, and it was well worth it - to my way of thinking, but not to my husband's. He prefers "Jane Austen endings" and this left him rewriting the last chapter - or adding another chapter - to his liking! I thought it was a typical John le Carre ending and didn't expect anything else. The reader - Robin Sachs (not a relative!) did a good job of portraying all the characters.


8) A Painted House - John Grisham - Audio Book - Another for the long days of driving. Interesting story unlike other books by Grisham, and a good one to listen to. A boy tells  the story of growing up on a cotton farm, and the poor life he and his family had when the crops weren't good. With a Tom Sawyer twist in painting the farm house.


So now it's back to housework with a lot of reading in between chores!