Reading Catering to Nobody, Diane Mott Davidson.

I love murder mysteries/lady sleuths!

The Wishing Year by Noelle Oxenhandler - Memoir about how she learned to wish and got 3 wishes in one year. Fascinating, she relates wishing to praying and includes many religions.

Just finished the most recent Laurell K. Hamilton book in the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter novels - SKIN TRADE. 18 books in the series. I'm bespelled.

The Help by Kathryn Stocket. Loved it.

Losing myself or avoidig reality in books?

Saundra, either works. I enjoy exploring another world when I read; the great escape.

Just finished Firefly Lane, by Kristin Hannah and can't wait to discuss it in our book club. It was on the NYTimes Bestseller list for months.

Losing myself again, Dotsie.

The Drunkard's Walk - How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow. Stephen Hawking claims it's readable. I guess it is if you're Stephen Hawking!

It's pretty interesting. I understand parts of it and it's making me feel better about myself and the choices I've made. It's about chance, randomness, and probability in relation to luck, the butterfly effect (discovered in the 60s by a meteorologist), and and psychological illusions.

This one will take a lifetime.

I'm straddling between 2 bks. So it takes time to savour each:


The Craftsman. By Richard Sennett. Bk. is a philosophical examination of craftsmanship, history and social impact on craftsmanship due to industrialization (=mass production), globalization (outsourcing) and free enterprise. For instance, he talks about the true craftsperson who just like to perfect their work for perfection sake. But forget the end result. He uses the example the creation of the atomic bomb as an example! References to skill of patient diagnosis by doctors and nurses if there is time and no push to be cost-efficient, vs. the revolving door of patient care treatment efficiencies. So lots of different ways of examing "craftsmanship" and what we now value/don't value as much.

http://www.amazon.com/Craftsman-Prof-Ric...3214&sr=1-1

sample bk. Review
http://www.amazon.com/Craftsman-Prof-Ric...rBy=addFourStar

One Foot in Laos. By Dervla Murphy. She is a prolific Irish cyclist an hiker. Has written travelogues over past 20 yrs. In this one she hikes, takes local bus and tries to do some biking after having hurt her foot. She is over 70 or late 60's in this trip.
http://www.amazon.com/One-Foot-Laos-Derv...3413&sr=1-1

Off Season by Anne Rivers Siddons, is what I'm reading at the moment.

Dotise, I think I read Firefly Lane, but I'm not 100% positive.

I've been reading this really off the wall fiction book called Lambs of God by a well known Aussie author (lady) named Marele Day. 1998, Riverhead Books-Penguin Putnam.
It is so different and crazy that it's interesting/entertaining. It's about 3 nuns who've been living in an almost forgotten about monastery on a remote (beautiful) island. Two of them are fairly old, and one is young, as she was an abandoned on their doorstep infant, so was raised by the nuns. They are kept company in their secluded life by a herd of sheep that helps to sustain them (their meat and wool). One day, a priest comes calling, fighting his way through the jungle-like growth that has even further isolated the place. He barely can believe his eyes that there are nuns still living in this mess of a run down compound. His mission is to assess the condition of the land, buildings, and etc., for (what else?) development into a fancy resort, though he keeps this info to himself, making out like he's just there on a social call. The nuns may be old and isolated, but they ain't stupid. Let the contest begin!

It's very entertaining in an odd way, although some of it is rather dark. The women characters are strong, independent, spiritual, practical, smart, unique, rough/tough.

We've got quite a list going here.

I'm almost finished Manic, A Memoir, by Terri Cheney. Several people we know have received a bipolar diagnosis within the past few years so I've been reading a bit about it. Plus, it was a free book given to me by the publisher. Here's a link if anyone's interested:

http://www.amazon.com/Manic-Memoir-Terri...0405&sr=8-2

Reading now:
The Summer Kitchen by Lisa Wingate
Henry's Sisters by Cathy Lamb
Now & Then by Jacqueline Sheehan