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!

Autumn

We have left our short summer behind. The leaves are falling - they don't change much in color here on the coast. This picture is from a trip into the Cascades a few years ago. We'll have to go again in the spring!

More Pictures from Alaska/Yukon Trip

Caribou in Denali National Park, Alaska

Five Fingers Rapids

Grizzly - Denali

A Hanging Glacier in Denali

The Yukon and Alaska

 The White Pass Railroad from Skagway, Alaska to Carcross, The Yukon

 Mounties on parade marching to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Lost Patrol - Dawson City

 Panning for gold! And we each got some.

Permafrost has collapsed these buildings in Dawson City

Tripping with NOOK

We have returned from our wonderful trip to the Yukon and Alaska, and I'll try to post some pictures later, if I can figure out how to do it!

I managed to read quite a few books on my new NOOK while we were on planes, waiting at airports or for stragglers on our motor coaches.

The first: Nemesis by Jo Nesbo - Norway mystery featuring the Police Detective Harry Hole. Very good - and kept me reading too late one night.

The second: Shoot to Thrill - P.J. Tracy - Another Monkeewrench mystery concerning Web murders and FBI Agent John Smith. Also very good.

The third: Every Last One - Anna Quindlen - Oh my. Lesley said I shouldn't read it, and I understand why, but it was such a well-written story. No spoilers.

The fourth: White Nights - Ann Cleeves - Another Shetland mystery with Jimmy Perez set during the long days on summer in the north - with very little darkness.

These were all so good I'm glad I saved them for the trip. I have two more on my NOOK for our trip to Nebraska, and may download another. But I can take books in the car with us, so don't have to rely on the NOOK too much!

Differences

I've recently read two very different books, and both were quite good. The first one I finished was another Norse mystery by Hakan Nesser, Borkmann's Point, and the second was A Year on Ladybug Farm by Donna Ball.


Well, the Nesser book was again a very good, slow-paced story, with a surprise ending. I've enjoyed his writing, and find it very interesting that most of the Scandinavian mysteries I've read are usually less violent than American "thrillers."  


A Year on Ladybug Farm is very funny and fun. I was expecting a fluffy read, but while it isn't terribly deep, it has lots of episodes that had me laughing so hard I had tears running down my cheeks, and had to keep wiping my eyes so that I could continue reading! 


When I was first learning to read back in the olden days, we had Readers in school with Tom, Dick and Jane. One of my favorite stories has stayed with me for years. It was about the three or four young people wanting to help a struggling family. I expect the story was written during the Depression. The children gathered up food to take to the family, as well as helping them out in other ways. That reading experience gave to me the idea of not just helping, but "making do" with what was available. Ladybug Farm is the adult version of helping out and making do - with lots of humor thrown in. 

There are two more Ladybug books, and I can hardly wait to read them. Laughter is such a necessary part of life, and such fun to find it in writing!

Purple

One of the plants that does very well on the coast in Oregon is the hydrangea. This is one of my favorites. It starts out as a light mauve, then darkens to a real purple and eventually turns to a metallic blue. We do get some hard frosts in the winter, and the plants suffer, but come back in the spring. Because of the frosts, however, we don't get blooms until late in the year. One year we had beautiful blooms in December - and then it snowed!

Blogging and Books

I'm finding it difficult to write reviews of the books I'm reading. I've read four books recently, and don't really have too much to say about any of them. So I think I'll just write a sentence or two, and leave the real reviewing to Les! 


Sing You Home - Jodi Picoult - Lesley has written an excellent review of this book so I won't even attempt one! As usual Picoult has written an engrossing story, and I found the book to be as good as most of her others, with interesting topics. A Plus read.


Burnt Mountain - Anne Rivers Siddons - This is not one of my favorites of hers. It was a quick read, and entertaining, but not something that will stay with me for very long.


The American Heiress - Daisy Goodwin - Something of a fluff book, but it kept my interest enough that I finished it! Tale of a very rich American woman who goes to England to "catch a Duke." Modeled after Consuelo Vanderbilt's era of titled husband-hunting in Europe.


Breaking Silence - Linda Castillo - Mystery in Amish country in Ohio. The Chief of Police in the community is an excommunicated Amish woman. This is part of a series, and I got into it after the first two books, so there were some spoilers. I liked this book, and will look for more of hers.


So my blogging will now be shorter, and even more infrequent than it has been! I hope to be able to add pictures from some of our trips some day, and do a Wordless Wednesday!

Roofing

We have been under attack for a week with much pounding on the roof. Our shake roof only lasted a bit over 13 years, thanks to the dampness and the towering trees shedding their needles. So this is the summer to re-roof, and it has taken quite a while. The rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat is becoming a real distraction. I'm finding it difficult to read for more than a few minutes at a time, and have had to do most of my reading in bed. So it took me a long time to finish These Lovers Fled Away but it was worth every minute of reading. 


I know I read Spring's book years and years ago, but didn't remember any of it. It is somewhat reminiscent of Delderfield's books in that the characters develop along the way in a detailed plot. The descriptions of England are fantastic. This is not the England we saw when we traveled there  ten years ago, but the England of the 1910s to 1940s. I most definitely recommend reading These Lovers Fled Away, if you want to immerse yourself in a "jolly good tale."

Family Reunion 2011

We had a lovely time with a good number of the families represented. The weather was very nice - for a change!

A part of the family  celebrating Bill's 80th!

If all had been able to come, there would have been twelve more of our children and grandchildren. 

Maybe next time!

HOOKED ON NOOK

I recently got a Nook for my birthday, and I'm saving the books I've downloaded to read on our trip to Alaska. We'll be away for fourteen days, and normally I would have at least ten books in my suitcase. Of course I wouldn't read them all, but I'd be sure to have something to read just in case the first five weren't exactly what I wanted to read! Now with the Nook I have seven books available, and can download new ones if necessary!!

My Nook also has the feature of getting my emails, so I won't be wondering what catalog has arrived - or maybe even an email from one of my children. I could even download some music from my iTunes and not take along my iPod! What riches! I'm very happy with my new toy.

This week - the week after our family reunion week - has been quiet. Almost too much so. I've started a new book after not reading for quite a while. I found it hard to get started on These Lovers Fled Away, by Howard Spring, but I'm enjoying it very much now. It is a comfortable story set in Cornwall and Yorkshire at the time of the Boer War and on into the 20th century. I love the descriptions of the countryside. Spring makes you really see what the moors, glens and all the flowers and animals look like. A lovely book - so far.

And the Last Two

I don't understand blogging. I saved the last reviews to come back to, but wasn't able to tack on the next two, so will start anew!

Two Rivers - t. greenwood - An involving story of a young widower with a twelve-year-old daughter. He is trying, but not very hard, to get over the death of his wife. He has loved her since they were twelve years old.
The book goes back and forth from the present to the past telling the story of Betsy and Harper and their growing up together, and the story of today when a train derails in the town of Two Rivers and brings a young pregnant woman into Harper's life. This was somewhat slow going in spots, but picks up the pace later in the story.

Mind's Eye - Hakan Nesser - And now for another Scandinavian mystery! This author also has a middle-aged, overweight and overworked Detective Chief Inspector. In this case he is Van Veeteren. He and his team set out to solve the murder of a beautiful teacher whose husband remembers nothing of the night in which she died. The case becomes more involved as the book progresses. Do they have the right suspect? Why would the victim become a victim? The twists and turns make this a good quick read.

The Rest of June

I've only read four more books this month. With a cousin reunion in California and preparing for our family get-together in early July, I found my reading taking place mostly late at night. Two of the books were passed on to my sister before I could form my thoughts about them, but I'll try to remember a bit about both.

Other People's Children - Joanna Trollope - A story about "extended families" and the repercussions when a parent marries, has children, divorces and then marries someone new who has also married, had children, divorced etc.  Following the lives of the children and the parents was sad, but I'm often what happens. I thought this was a good book, but as my husband says "Not a Jane Austen."

The King of Liars - John Hart - I found the plot of this mystery to be quite good, but the flowery prose left me very irritated. Hart seemed to be trying too hard with his descriptions of a woman crying. Why not just say she was crying instead of saying "silver tracks made their way down her cheeks." Maybe he is paid by the word because most of the book is filled with these things! But the story itself was okay...

MORE READING

I started this month with a bang – one good book after another - almost. The first had me “on the edge of my chair” from page one.

Blood Harvest – S. J. Bolton – This is the third of her books I’ve read, and by far the best. I had to stop reading every so often because it was so tense – but I had to go back almost immediately to see what was going to happen next!

The Fletcher’s new house – built between two churches in a small village – out to be paradise, but they’ve barely settled in before they find that someone seems to be trying to drive them away with increasingly dangerous threats targeting their oldest child, ten-year-old Tom.

Bolton has won various awards for her thrillers, and with good reason. She keeps you guessing and keeps you from reading late at night with her tales. Scary!!

Tomorrow River – Lesley Kagen – I bought this ARC from our book sale at the library because I had read one of her books before and liked it well enough. I had a hard time at the beginning hearing the “voice” of Shenandoah Carmody. Shenny and Woody are twin sisters living at Lilyfield – a beautiful home in the country, but Woody has become mute since their mother’s disappearance, and Shenny has to speak for both of them. The girls start searching for their mother with very little help from their father who has become a drunken, mean person, and not the loving father he had been. The search includes a varied group of friends of Shenny’s, but no one can really help her – or will. The family seems to disintegrate and Shenny faces many heartbreaking times ahead.

I See You Everywhere – Julia Glass – I liked The Three Junes when I read it several years ago, so looked forward to this new book. It was a book that held my interest, but I had a hard time identifying with the two sisters who tell the story in alternate chapters. Both Louisa and Clem are very flawed people, and not too fond of either each other or of their parents. Louisa has always been jealous of her younger sister, and through the years the jealousy continues. Early in the book is a chapter about a great-great aunt who is ninety-eight. Clem comes to be her companion for a summer. I could have read a whole book about Clem and her aunt Lucy! There are chapters about ecology and conservation that involve Clem, and chapters about art and Louisa, but overall the book doesn’t hold together very well – at least for me. Sometimes if felt as if I was reading a lot of short stories.

Now to see what the next book will be!