Ah, summer reading-my favorite topic. Well, except for autumn reading. Or winter reading. Or spring reading... This summer, alas, I got lost in Westeros. Although I haven't seen the tv version, I decided to give A Game of Thrones a try, since the reviews of both the show and book were so strong. Fantasy is not a genre I ever read but I figured what the heck, if I didn't like the first chapter I could just move on. Oh my. I started GOT on my summer beach vacation, then snapped up the next 3 books on Amazon and just finished A Dance with Dragons last night. What an incredible saga! The author created such an vivid evocation of a medieval world, which he based on the York and Lancaster era of British history. The characters, the plot, the intricacy of weaving together storylines, totally addictive. For a non-fantasy fan, the magic is woven into the plotlines in such a way that it is integral to the story. I don't know if I want to watch the HBO version; I tend to prefer to keep my own mental images of literary characters. I'll probably cave though, evidently HBO, and George Martin who was involved in the production's writing, did a great job translating the books to visuals so far. The relatively few other books I managed to fit in (each of those Song of Ice and Fire tomes are thousand page monsters) included 11/22/63, our summer book club assignment. Enjoyed it a lot. I quit reading Stephen King decades ago. A very skillful writer but the horror schtick got old--just when I'd get swept into the story oops there comes a ghost, or a vicious otherworldly murderer or whatever. But this book about time travel was touching, and thought provoking. I have Gone Girl on my nightstand, and wonder how it will compare to Gillian Flynn's other two books. Those were very, very dark and the protagonists were decidedly not warm n fuzzy characters. Looking forward to starting this one. I am also ready for Sacre Bleu, which got great reviews. A book about solving Vincent Van Gogh's presumptive murder...interesting premise. Other recent reads: Seating Arrangements-stopped reading this one although it got good reviews. About an upper crust family wedding in New England, but I couldn't stand or believe in a single character. Maybe it was just me though, others might like it. The Underside of Joy-a somewhat soap opera-ish book about a woman whose husband dies suddenly, leaving her to raise his two small children. Then the ex-wife and biomom shows up, and life takes some interesting turns. The Lifeboat-set around the turn of the century, a young social climber on her honeymoon is set adrift after the ship on which she and her husband are traveling sinks. Quintessential unreliable narrator tale, and I'm a sucker for survival at sea stories. Girlchild-one of the best, though darkest, books I've read in years. Superbly written story about a girl growing up in a very tough neighborhood near Las Vegas, with a single mom and a lot of obstacles to overcome. Really, really good book. The Language of Flowers-another book about a girl on her own, quite different style from Girlchild but a warm redemptive ending makes it a little lighter read. Defending Jacob-wow, this was a page turner! Story of a lawyer father doing what the title says for his son Jacob, who is accused of killing a classmate in his tony suburban high school. Similar to We Need to Talk about Kevin so you're warned...this is definitely nightmare-parenting material. But so well written, kept me riveted till the very end, which had one last shocking plot twist. The Art of Fielding-I resisted this one for awhile because I'm not a baseball fan and I thought that was most of the plot. Turns out baseball is the framework but there was so much more to this story about a talented young college player who goes into a severe slump. Though it took a bit of a detour mid-book, I really enjoyed the characters and it was definitely worth reading. An Available Man-a guy who is widowed tries to move on after losing a much loved spouse. Nicely written, gentle book that caught the spirit of the mantra "you don't get over it, you get through it" in someone's life. Those are the fiction books. Some recent non-fiction I liked: Would it Kill You to Stop Doing That-A Modern Guide to Manners-hilarious, definitely worth a read and thought provoking underneath a very funny writing style. Eating Clean for Dummies-pretty much what you'd think from the title. Interesting explanation of food chemistry and tips on how to do better than the standard agrobusiness/big grocery/chain restaurant shopping pattern. The American Way of Eating-good companion to the book above, the author went undercover at various stops on the agrobusiness/big grocery/chain restaurant cycle in the US, including working at Walmart, Applebees and corporate owned farms. Quite enlightening. Ninety Days: A Memoir of Recovery-a sequel from Bill Clegg, again pretty self explanatory title. Father's Day: A Journey into the Mind and Heart of My Extraordinary Son-memoir by a successful author (he wrote Friday Night Lights) about a road trip taken with his twentysomething son. Son, a twin, was born very premature and suffered brain damage leaving him developmentally disabled. His twin brother grew up normally, went on to an Ivy League college and a career as a teacher. The book describes a cross country drive for the father and 'damaged' son to connect, but the author writes about his feelings on raising a child with severe health issues, the son's life and attitudes, etc. Very moving. Winter King-Henry VII and the Dawn of Tudor England. Oakley, this book's for you! And for everyone else obsessed with this time period. Very deeply researched history of the title character and the world he inhabited, which of course set the stage for the reign of his son. And last but maybe best: Wild-this memoir by Cheryl Strayed is a (deservedly) best seller. Strayed spent several months hiking to try to resolve issues in her life following the death of her mother, and the downward spiral that followed for her. Beautifully written and as someone who also lost my mother at about the same age as Strayed, it certainly rang true in so many ways. Great book. That's probably enough from me for one day! Hope to hear about more good books, you can never have too many waiting in the queue. Ann

Thank you. This thread has kept me from the gardening and a possible bee sting. I see many old favorites and more exciting, new authors to try. One of my favorites not listed is Robert Van Gulik, Dutch, world reknown expert on China, son of a diplomat I believe and wrote about Judge Dee in the Tang dynasty. Warning, one book has descriptive scene - 'drawn & quartered' for a mean malevolent being. Was Nevada Barr mentioned? Her lonely ranger, Anna Pigeon, works in the natl. parks. Rarely have physical locales' descriptions stayed with me as strongly. I can still go back to the depths of Lake Superior or the Anasazi cliff dwellings. Perhaps a bit on the dark side.

Finished a rather fun read of Love Among the Butterflies by Margaret Fountaine, a collection of her diary entries which detail her wide travels across the world collecting butterflies (and sometimes men). [grin] Fountaine was a vicar's daughter (I think) who grew up at the tail end of Victoria and the beginning of Edwardian days, and as she was not married, she found herself somewhat unoccupied. She started to collect butterflies, and after a while, became a serious entomologist and traveled across the world adding pieces to her large collection. (Lots of overlaps with Edith Holden here.) So - clearly, this is an unorthodox woman for the times: she travels widely to countries not familiar to a lot of people back then, she ends up having a long-term relationship (and traveling with) a man from Syria, she becomes an expert in butterflies... It's quite admirable just how far she pushed acceptability in female terms back then, but it did come with a price. She really struggles to reconcile her love of freedom with the cultural expectations of the time with regard to spinsters and marriage and "suitable" partners. Despite all her travel experience, she stays curiously unhappy throughout her life (at least as told in these entries). She is very defensive all the time, but was heartless to those who kept her close to their hearts. Her Syrian lover could not be publicly acknowledged for many years, and although they travel and work well together, she insisted on them having different rooms and standards (despite their relationship), and she could never grasp that he was in love with her for realz. In their rather frequent seperations, she would drive herself to distraction imagining various horrible scenes involving him and an accident or another woman etc. Fountaine does acknowledge in her diaries that she adores her freedom, but anything that seems to threaten that state of affairs immediately puts her into a tailspin of being mean to her family, friends and lovers, of acting selfishly and generally being a bit of a pinhead. However, just because she was rather an unkind person doesn't make this book any less fascinating. The illustrations taken from her diary pages are intriguing to look at: her writing is immaculate with very few errors and she justifies her handwriting on every page. (Goodness - how to do that without making a crossing-out every now and then, who knows?). She had volumes of diaries and numerous boxes of butterfly specimens that she bequeathed to a museum, but only with the condition that the museum administration do not open the diary box for 40 years after her death. This agreement was stuck to, and so they waited for the correct time. Thus were found the diaries. So - good read overall. Woodnymph - you mentioned earlier that you had a copy but it was only a paperback and had type that was difficult to read. Would you like me to send you this copy? It's only going to the library book sale otherwise,...

On Sunday I finished The Innocent Man, John Grisham's non-fiction account of two men who were wrongly convicted of murder in Oklahoma. One of the men spent years on death row before being released. It is not a happy book, to say the least, but it is very well researched and for the most part well written. The book was a stark reminder to me of why I always wanted to study and work in criminal law and also of why I dropped out of law school because I realized I could not emotionally deal with criminal law. One personally interesting aspect to me was that I was on a business trip to Oklahoma City and had been upgraded to a first class seat (one of several times that the very nice former airline TWA upgraded me for no apparent reason except that first class was where I was meant to be!). Anyway, I was seated directly behind Barry Scheck, the lawyer who was involved in the O. J. Simpson case (a bad thing) and who runs the Innocence Project (a good thing). When I stood up to leave the plane I saw that he had two large notebooks, each with a man's name on it. A couple of days later he was on the Today show because he had just helped to free two men who had been wrongly convicted of murder and their names were the names I had seen on the notebooks. They are the same two men John Grisham has written about in this book, although I didn't realize it when I first started reading.