Usually I read five or six nonfiction books for every one fiction, but here lately I've gone through a spurt of novel reading. Fiction takes so much more effort for me that now I'm ready to kick back and pamper myself for a while with the following: The Riddle and the Knight: In Search of Sir John Mandeville, the World's Greatest Traveller by Giles Milton - Sir John is suspected of being one of the biggest travelogue-writing frauds of all time; but was he really? The author attempts to find out by going himself to the places Mandeville claimed to have journeyed through. I just read a bit about Milton going to visit the Patriarchate of the Greek Orthodox Church in Istanbul (Constantinople in Mandeville's time) but he found himself in a seedy part of town and needed directions. Passing an Orthodox Church he stepped inside its door to find a woman in the vestibule. He asked her and after she told him which way to go, Milton asked her if she was a Romioi (a direct descendant of the Roman founders of Constantinople): "No," she said. "I'm Italian. From Bologna." She didn't look Italian, and I asked when she had moved to Istanbul. She paused for a moment, then said: "I think we moved here four centuries ago." If Milton keeps up this sort of thing, I'm going to love this book! The Degaev Affair by Richard Pipes (History, Biography) I'm not well-informed about Russian history, so this bio of an obscure-to-me political terrorist who witnessed the assassination of Tsar Alexander II and then directly helped plot the assassination of the chief of Russia's security organization ordinarily would not have attracted me. But I read the back cover anyway, for some reason, and was instantly intrigued because this terrorist, Sergei Degaev, eventually wound up at -- of all places! -- the University of South Dakota as an avuncular mathematics professor known as Alexander Pell. "Jolly little Pell" and his pleasant wife were evidently great favorites of his students, the faculty, and the townspeople. This guy was a terrorist? Huck's Raft: A History of American Childhood by Steven Mintz The romanticized notions and nostalgia for the halycon days of childhood can be dispensed with quite quickly when we realize that the whole idea of childhood as we think of it only goes back to around the first part of the twentieth century. Even Samuel Clemens who did more than any other American writer of his day to capture the essence of nineteenth-century boyhood was under no illusions that childhood, for the most part, was about one-tenth bliss and nine-tenths pure hell. This overview of the history of American childhood from the 17th century to the beginning of the 21st century looks to be fascinating -- I sure hope so.

I've heard about subscription libraries -- and Boots in particular -- but I've never had any experience with them. It's interesting, Vee, that Jane and Cassandra were subscribers in the late 18th century. I have also read speculation about the Brontes having access to private subscription libraries, although apparently no proof of which one(s) has yet been found, at least they hadn't been when I was on my last Bronte kick abut ten years ago. I hadn't read before that subscription was considered superior to circulating, but after reading the type of books available in each, I can see why they were considered so. However, I like Austen's spirited defense of reading novels. I've long loved her send up of Gothic romances in Northanger Abbey. Annpan, can you recall the 'typical' books that subscribers most favored at your particular Boots? What about the gender -- more women, about the same number of women and men? Sheri, I found Eat, Love, Pray insufferable for all the reasons you described, and I probably didn't finish it. So I will admit that Wild, compared to Eat, etc., is better than trying to endure eating wasabi, which I loathe. I consumed all of Wild. Your comment about Cheryl being a 'train wreck' hits home with me. I felt like a rubbernecker passing an auto crash, and was ashamed of my voyeuristic tendency. Also, the farther I got into the book, the more I thought she was laying it on with a trowel and I became skeptical. I don't really doubt that she had Problems, but I wonder if she might be overstating things for effect: Oh, if you think you've had problems, just let me tell you about mine. That sort of thing. As for the 'unflinching' quality of her writing, I felt that too was part of her dramatic self-representation. Isn't exhibition another way people who have lived in abusive situations react? I'm not sorry I read Wild, Sheri. It should give me a bit of insight as to why this sort of memoir seems to be so widely popular. But personally I still find it uncomfortable reading and will not purposefully seek out this sort of writing.

Have been pretty much a lurker for years, posted occasionally and found this site via GardenWeb. I'm finishing up my MLIS (Masters in Library Science) and work full time at a hospital as a medical librarian. Before that, I ran the transcription department in that same hospital just short of 10 years. I live in San Pedro California, a sweet little town on the coast of SoCal, not too far from Long Beach and south of L.A. School has reigned in my "fun reading" but now I can begin to relax and have at it! I love mysteries and just finished the Deborah Crombie series. I also like Peter Robinson. In fiction I just love Rumer Godden; I re-read her wonderful books periodically. Amy Tan is another wonderful author. Barbara Kingsolver (SP?) and Ken Follett too are wonderful. There are many others, but I can't think of them all! Many new and wonderful books I get from this website - someone is always reading something that interests me! My husband of 34.5 years is a retired CIO. His passion is aviation and WWII. He builds large scale model RC planes. Seriously, these things are BIG! We have two very spoiled (indoor) cats. Now that my academic endeavors are almost behind me, I plan to tackle my neglected garden, my (long) lists of TBR books I've been making - for years now - and assorted needlework projects, i.e. knitting, cross stitch, crocheting. Not necessarily in that order!

Pat I read The Edge of Nowhere (the first in the series)by Elizabeth George a few months ago and was rather underwhelmed by the story which was very much aimed at a 'US teen' market and made me feel very old and English. On the other hand I felt I could be put down anywhere on Whidbey Island and be able to find my way round without a map; the descriptions were very detailed. I've just finished A Week in Winter by Marcia Willet (not to be confused by a book of the same name by Maeve Binchy that has just come out) This was an OK read for a few days. Set in Devonshire/Cornwall with the usual middle-class characters suffering from guilt, hidden secrets, lost love etc. with some nice descriptions of the countryside. As the characters spent almost every page drinking tea or coffee and one of them was called Polly, I felt a better title would have been 'Shall I Put the Kettle On?'