Felicia's Journey - William Trevor (1994) A title that was picked rather randomly off the TBR shelf, this was a great surprise read for me. William Trevor, described by Wiki as âÂÂone of the elder statesmen of the Irish literary world,â is famous for his short stories, but his back list is HUGE and so there are loads of different books to choose from. HeâÂÂs won loads of prestigious literary prizes (including the Whitbread Prize and five nominations for the Booker Prize.) Irreverent sidenote: He sounds a bit like the Snoop Dogg/Lion of the Booker World.* So - to the plot of this fast-moving and short book: Felicia is an unmarried and naïve Irish girl who ends up getting pregnant by a visiting no-good lad from her village and who has moved away to England. In FeliciaâÂÂs impoverished family, there are few options for her to follow, so she leaves Ireland to go to the Midlands to chase down this boy who, she is certain, would like to know she is pregnant and would do the right thing. Her family is against this lad from the get-go as her father believes that the guy has run off to join the British Army, and as they are extremely wound up in Irish Independence activity and history, and so to them, this act means he has joined the enemy. Along with this is the fact that the family is Roman Catholic and his father works at a convent in the garden, so options for her pregnancy are not available either. Poor thing - itâÂÂs no win for her all around, it seems, and so she visits England for the first time - a foreign country for her as she has not traveled much before. Aside from the facts that Felicia has little money, no friends, no housing, and a fake address for this boy of hers, it doesnâÂÂt look very hopeful. Then she meets Mr. Hilditch (always used with that title) who is a quiet non-descript middle-aged catering manager for a local factory near where Felicia is staying. He presents himself as a kind and rescuing father figure for her, but in his thoughts, the reader can see that there is a history of something weird. He has âÂÂrescuedâ girls before, but what has come of them? And will he do the same with Felicia? This is a taut psychological novel about the hunter and the hunted: Mr. Hildich is the predator and naïve girls âÂÂwho wonâÂÂt be missedâ are the prey. At the same time as this is happening, you also follow FeliciaâÂÂs thoughts as she is scared and confused. She lives on the street for a few days, gets in with a rather strange religious group who can give her a place to sleep, and she keeps being circled by Mr. Hildich, as a shark does bleeding seals. You just know that something is going to happenâ¦. But what? The ending comes quite quickly and itâÂÂs not what I had thought it would do. (I love this unpredictability in a plot.) There are a few major twists and in the end, things are left hanging unsolved really....

Netla - I adore Mary Roach and her writing. She came to campus one day for a talk, and she was absolutely hilarious. Really recommend that anyone see her if she comes your way - truly interesting and funny way to spend your evening. I have just finished Comfort Woman by Nora Okja Keller (1998), a debut novel by a daughter of a Korean immigrant wife and her white US missionary husband who now live in Hawaii. The books flips back and forth between the daughter's present time PoV and the mother's (now dead) PoV and the cultural/generational clashes that arise. The mother can see spirits and goes into trances - a gift that she believes she was given after having suffered as a "comfort woman" to the Japanese troops when they invaded Korea. Not a straight-forward narrative and quite a bit of magical realism (naturally, since we see some of it from the mother's PoV). Normally not a big fan of this, but this book worked for me once I got the hang of the writing style. Not a happy book, but a good one with a strong ending. I also liked learning about the various beliefs and customs for some of the villages in Korea - fascinating. (Still not a big fan of kim chee.) :-)

Honestly, I read a lot. I should make a list and keep track because I am not sure if I read a book in 2012 or the first part of 2013. So, I will be choosing books from the past six months. Science fiction: The Windup Girl I loved the setting in a futuristic Thailand, the plot, just a great read. "The Windup Girl is a biopunk science fiction novel written by Paolo Bacigalupi and published in September 2009. It was named as the ninth best fiction book of 2009 by TIME magazine,[1] and as the best science fiction book of the year in the Reference and User Services Association's 2010 Reading List.[2] This book is a 2009 Nebula Award and a 2010 Hugo Award winner (tied with The City & the City by China Miéville for the Hugo Award), both for best novel.[3] This book also won the 2010 Compton Crook Award and the 2010 Locus Award for best first novel." A Tale for the Time Being I had a lot of fun discussing this one here so perhaps that has something to do with this choice! The Orenda by Joseph Boyden. He is a Canadian author, and this novel is "a defining epic story of first contact between radically different worlds, steeped in the natural beauty and brutality of our country's formative years." There are three narrators, a captive Iroquois girl, A Huron leader and a Jesuit. Boyden did his research, I found it fascinating and learned a lot. Also I just finished it last night, so it is very fresh in my memory, lol.

Seems like things are returning to normal around here after an early spring. The flowers most recently coming into bloom are pretty much in line with last year's dates. Lots of rain around here lately, which has been really helpful with all the planting I did this year. Most things are standing up pretty well, except things like the Coreopsis lanceolata, but that's not too surprising. I've had to stake the one snaky Liatris punctata that's managed to survive here, and a couple of Culver's root plants whose stems were beaten down by a storm. My hell strip planting always leans toward the south, like it's on a north- bound train moving fast. I suppose some of that could be sun-related, but I suspect it's more about predominant winds, which get funneled down the north-south street next to it. You really notice the lean after storms. It makes me appreciate the things like the Cheyenne Sky switchgrass that don't seem to be affected by it and continue to stand up straight. I have some seed-grown Salvia azurea on the south side of the house, under the eaves where it's drier. Bumblebees love it. My plan is to have enough stuff in front of it so that I don't have to bother cutting it back in May/June, but I haven't gotten to that point yet. It works pretty well I think in a fairly dense planting, especially with grasses like the bluestems that stay low early on and allow the sun to reach the Salvia. I imagine it would be nice with late-blooming sunflowers of some type.