Siobhan - If you haven't read Moggach's other works, then you are in a for a true treat. She is an excellent writer, all her books are unpredictable (important for me), and just good reads. Plus there are quite a few of them... I haven't read a bad one yet. I have just finished up Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy which I enjoyed. I do think I had had been asked to read this during school days, but tbh, I remembered nothing about it except countryside descriptions. Was good though. And then, for my NF read, I whizzed through a new release called The Power of Habit by NYT writer Charles Duhigg. An interesting science-based book about why we have the habits we have, what they look like from micro- to macro-scale (organizational habits etc.) and then how to break them. Not a self-help book, but more along the lines of a Malcom Gladwell type. Good and fast read for me. And then, I am reading an African feminist coming-of-age book which has been recommended by a friend who works in an NGO in Ghana. It's called Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga and a first-person narrative of growing up African in 1960's Rhodesia. Fascinating and the author has an extremely wicked sense of humor. :-)

Finished up (gobbled up really) the rest of the Michael Dirda essays in his book "Reading" which I just loved and recommend for any serious book lover. The essays are engaging, intelligent and challenging all at the same time. I am not familiar with a lot of his work so most of this is new to me, but I am finding it delightful. Just had to order another one of his books to continue this delightful reading experience... Then read "The Sheltering Sky" by Paul Bowles (see other thread for that), and then read my way through a book of quotations taken from children's books from long ago and quite recent. It was interesting to see just how en pointe some of the quotes could be when applied to adult life and its various issues. It was called "What the Dormouse Said" and was edited by Amy Gash. A good thrift shop find. Now onto "Tepper isn't Going Out" by Calvin Trillan - an ordinary guy in NYC decides to sit in his car and read while waiting for his meter to run out. NYCers take it to be a sign of something and it builds from there. Nothing too outstanding, but not bad.

An English friend who has seen the film tells me that it should be right up my alley, I guess based on that I like "The Cement Garden" and "The Comfort of Strangers." I actually like those film adaptations better than McEwan's books, though book and film in each case are just about equally unsettling IMO. I've run across few moviewatchers who like the films as much as I do, though. I still haven't got around to reading Atonement. Do you think I should before I see the film?

Finished "Amsterdam" by Ian McEwan. Good story about friendship, and moral choices, that can be just when you choice them, they seems to be the logical choice following seemingly yours beliefs, but some times you realized they were not, and them can have a bad backlash later Now I am about to start “The Boarding House” by one of my favourite authors, he was born in Irish, but it is not the typical Irish writer, as a matter of fact he spent most part of his life in London. I like him, because I am a big Fan of Georges Simenon (only the novels , I don’t like the Maigret stories). They are similar because their stories are shrouded in a kind of hazyness, an there are a lot of little but very important details. William Bird has always taken in boarders who are on the fringes of society: the petty conman, the immigrant who's never been able to fit in, the blustering officer who really doesn't know what's what , and the just plain lonely. He's built a unique place with a unique atmosphere. But then he realizes he's dying, and he decides to leave the place to the two tenants likely to cause the greatest amount of trouble, and the whole enterprise goes up in smoke.