I got tired of Patricia Cornwell. The early books were SO good. I will read anything by Jeffrey Deavor John Sandford is a favorite Nevada Barr and J A Jance are a must-read when a new one comes out in paperback I have everything Dick Francis ever wrote..his descriptions are spot on (I even found one plagiarized, word for word, in a Robert Parker novel) Iris Johanssen pleases me Sometimes Maria Stewart I will read a book a day if I allow myself to do so. Literally hundreds of books are donated yearly to the library, or Habitat, or whoever will take them.

That's so neat, Sarah_Canary! I love hearing authors read from their books and admiring them from afar. But like Rosefolly, I invariably become starstruck and babble incoherently. Recently, I was able to go to the American Library Association conference in Anaheim. Three of my favorite authors were there. Leif Enger was signing So Brave, Young and Handsome which I really enjoyed, though not as much as Peace Like a River. Sadly, no one else was in line to get his autograph (he was up against Greg Mortenson--Karalk's fave). I think I blubbered something about admiring him the way I admired Kent Haruf. Ron Carlson was signing Five Skies and we had an interesting conversation about food--and the fact that one of the main characters in his book was named after him. Finally--and here's my most embarrassing moment--Sherman Alexie was signing The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. I waited in line for a while and when I got up to him all I could say was "I love you." How stupid and embarrassing! I was already embarrassed because I feel like I am the exact wrong audience for his books (what business do I have as a middle-class WASP relating so heavily to his books--he should hate me!). Luckily he was very gracious and just said "Thank You." Then, he noticed from my name badge that I was from Whittier and commented, somewhat ironically, on the fact that I share my hometown with President Nixon. I just blushed and thanked him for signing my book. He was such a nice guy!

Vee, I think what you're suggesting is true. Just as in Wales, there is now nothing whatsoever remaining of the old coalmines and coalfields - it's as if the whole industrial revolution had never taken place: 'Nothing beside remains: boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away' as Shelley said. Halifax for instance, a bowl set amongst hills, was once almost invisible from above for the smoke and fumes of the factories etc. which functioned there. Now the old buildings, cleaned up and turned into things like Art Galeries and Craft Centres and Boutiques, it is really rather a chic place. Dear old Bradford - Priestley's Bradford - he would hardly recognise were he to come back for the immigrant population, as you say, and the curry houses at every corner - you get some of the best curries in UK there. And then there's the tourist industry...... 'Last of the Summer Wine country (Holmfirth) and 'Emmerdale country (around Leeds). and in the early '60s, when I first visited Haworth to pay my respects to the Brontes, the Black Bull (where Branwell bought the gin for Anne......) was just like any other pub and buses ran up and down Main Street. Later, I lived there for 17 years and when I left it was almost totally overrun with tourists to such an extent that it was better known as 'Bronte Village' than as Haworth. Purists and locals threatened to deface the 'Bronte Village' signs, in fact - especially since most of the tourists were bus trippers who'd been taken for a day's outing and had never even heard of the Brontes. But they loved the cobbled streets and the quaint little pubs and probably thought us residents were pretty cute too! Stan Barstow gives us this picture of a changing Yorkshire, too, in his later books - touristy Haworth appears in A BROTHER'S TALE(1978). But in his Ella trilogy (1990s), he turns right back to WW2 to tell his story Dido

I miss Flip Wilson and the type of programs in today's line-up. Anybody can master scales, but James Galway can do more with it than most other. Got his concerts on records, tapes, cd's, I think we got rid of the a-track. My recorder playing stopped long ago. Jim Morison, died much to young and I agree with "Whoever controls the media, controls the mind", that's why I am against censorship. We had it once.