"It sometimes happens, even in the best of families, that a baby is born." *

I finished The Virgin of Small Plains in less than 24 hours. It was a good, if ultimately throwaway, mystery/suspense novel. I have read all of Nancy Pickard’s Jenny Cain mysteries and enjoyed them for what they were – straightforward mysteries with likeable characters and always a twist at the end. I am really glad I did not buy this as I am trying to cut back on my book-accumulating (haha!), but I am glad I read it. It was just what I needed to take my mind off the gross goings-on in my household. (Rebecca – I liked it, but depending on the subject matter of your new book, you may not need to change your title. Virgin’s getting a lot of word-of-mouth press, but it’s not like it’s a new Atwood or Byatt; it’s a serviceable, enjoyable mystery novel.)

I am about halfway through Philip Pullman’s The Ruby in the Smoke and while I must say to Lazy Cow that you are seriously smoking crack if you think these are better than the Northern Lights trilogy (not that I adore you any less…), I am enjoying them. Shades of Mary Russell, shades of Nancy Drew – Fun. Predictable. I am looking forward to the next one. Which is waiting for me downstairs as I requested all of them at once from the library.

I also picked up Loving Frank on the recommendation of a bookseller at B&N whose taste I trust, and The Friday Night Knitting Club (Amy, I’ll be sure to let you know what I think. Do I EVER hesitate to do that? : )). My Favorite Librarian left me a note on my stack of holds advising me to get Gods Behaving Badly, so I requested that. I do love that woman. Quid pro quo, I told her to read Haven Kimmel’s The Used World. I am clearly thrilled to death about my “discovery” of Kimmel and wish to spread the gospel to all the world.

Josh Swiller’s The Unheard: A Memoir of Deafness and Africa started out whinier than I cared for, but quickly ramped up into a fine read. I appreciated his honest take on life as a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa – he tried to romanticize the experience but eventually saw that he couldn’t and was very straightforward about his disillusionment. And I really found interesting his assertion that being a white man in Africa essentially removed his handicap, and he could then experience life as a hearing person. Since language was a barrier anyway, and the Africans were careful to speak slowly, simply, and straight at him, he could experience what it was like to just be a normal hearing person, to a certain extent. Fascinating observation. Because H was a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa in the eighties, I find these sort of memoirs interesting, but this is the first one I have actually enjoyed. Not that I have the faintest desire to visit Africa.

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In other exciting news, my little brother and his wife had their second baby this weekend, a little girl. Everybody’s doing great, although my brother *sounds* like he’s been run over by a truck. Is my husband the only new father who goes home, has a nice dinner, showers, and sleeps – while he can?

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"...This is not necessarily cause for alarm. The important thing is to keep your wits about you and borrow some money."
- Elinor Goulding Smith