The book was Cambium and the Life of Lanagan Murphy. I am glad you enjoyed it so much. The friend who gave me the book works for the publisher and said there was a noticeable upsurge in orders for that particular book a few months back - thank you, Mona and everyone else who helped support a small press and a charity working to reduce pet overpopulation.

I received the book just before I left for the Jane Austen Festival and was surprised to find that it was a hardcover copy after all. The beginning reminded me a little of Touch Not the Cat in that she started with an earlier story, a prequel, that sets the stage for the modern day story. Unlike TNtC, the story doesn't go back and forth between the two times, the prequel sets up the later one and that's it. It is much shorter than her regular novels but I don't see how she could have expanded it in order to make it much longer. I can safely say that it's not my favorite MS, butI am glad that I have it and have read it. (And I will read it again at some time)

Until my arthritic wrists and fingers cannot hold a book at all, the web will not be a substitute. I suspect, no I am sure, that the people here on GW who are encyclopedic in their knowledge learn, learned, and re-learned from books (as well as experience and the web) Is it a generational thing, this difference between learning from reading a book and learning from the web? There's a lot to gry_'s comment about finding something again on the web (though one can become more skilled at bookmarking) and findiing it in a familiar book. The book can carry physical evidence of experience: the soiled pages of a frequently turned to topic (like my brownies, roast turkey and bread recipes in my first cook book; you could boil the book and get the nutritional equivalent of a meal) The penned notations in the margin (really, did my handwriting look like that 20 years ago) I really don't think I'd remember Dirr's comment about the edibility of the Kousa dogwood fruit "I'd rather have a Snickers" if I hadn't read it dozens of times over the years. Dirr's books are bedside reading all winter. Alas, the encyclopedias were actually too heavy for me to hold comfortably.. I think I'll need an adaptive pillow or tray to get through this winter. I love the internet; I spend a lot of time on it. But I suspect way deep down that I believe the learning from access to so much information is somehow inferior to learning from books. I think that's wrong and the wrongness will be proved repeatedly from research. But I'm talkiing about a prejudice born of hours of learning since childhood how to parse info in books, assimilate it and reorganize it for one's own use.....or come up with an original idea of one's own! What a great question!

My garden is really quite small. It's only about 1/4 acre. It's amazing how much plant material one can cram into a small plot! My grass, both front and back, is sort of like two area rugs! Less to mow - DGS's can mow in less than 15 minutes. It's taken 33 years to get to this point, with many setbacks due to trees blowing down/dying. Always a work in progress... wish I could still work in the garden - for the last 2-3 years, I sit and point! I have a yardman (whom I've trained - totally untrained when hired) for 4 hrs a week. This time of year, I could use him everyday but he has other yards and also works full time in housekeeping at a local hospital - has worked there for 32 years. Nicest man on earth!