She reminds me of my mother. Mutti would be 105 years old if she still was alive, she did go through life pretty much with that same attitude. In 1969 and again in 1972 I had the pleasure of her visit from Germany. She traveled alone to NYC, visited with my sisters and then continued on the California. When she arrived here, she told me about all those people on the plane she communicated with and how delightful they were - and she did not speak any English! She related to my friends the same way and never felt left out or alone.

This thread has taken on a life of it's own!!! kec01, then by your definition, it's a McMansion. Well, not by my definition, because it is among the best of design, workmanship and landscaping that I have ever seen. However, yes, it surrounded by McMansions, my wife fondly refers to as "the big uglys". But getting back to the point, where do *you* have *your* nestegg invested, and how do you plan to beat, or even come close to the inevitable inflationary spiral? I was watching some of the "financial guru's" talking about how our economic condition doesn't look like 1929, or the Japanese meltdown, but more like the Weimar Republic of 1919. (kec01, you can google that also!) If that is the case, I'd better start looking for a deserted island with space to grow a crop!

I thought I'd follow up and let you know how it went at my book club's Maeve Binchy night -- not so well. Not a one of them had read Maeve Binchy before and none of them were very enthusiastic about the book they chose. There was even a suggestion that Maeve does a lot of "man bashing," which I had never considered before. It's true, there are a lot of wronged women in her repertoire, but then books about happy marriages don't sell very well, do they? Other comments included too much use of coincidence and too many happy endings. Oh my! As for myself, I finally chose The Lilac Bus, mostly because I thought no one else would choose it. I was correct about that. (It's not a very compelling title.) I enjoyed the bus stories (the novel part), but I was pretty indifferent to the Dublin stoies. But then, I've never been a fan a short stories. Kathy

Chris, I'm not surprised your library doesn't have any Giles books. It has been several years since she died, and I'm not sure how widely read she was anyway. She was certainly popular here, though, and her books are still in our libraries and some of them in state park gift shops, etc. I'm sure you can find them on line. Some of her books are better than others, of course. I read a literary criticism of her work once that quoted her as saying she always wanted to write like Willa Cather, and the reviewer said she had succeeded--beautiful writing but she forgot to tell a story. (Sorry, Cather fans.) Mrs. Giles was also quoted as saying she should have been qualified to write because she had read a book a day for years. Sounds like some of us could qualify on those terms, doesn't it? Another of her KY series dealing with different characters is set in the mountains: The Enduring Hills, Miss Willie, and Tara's Healing.