I enjoy Ann Granger's Mitchell & Markby series (usually don't care for mysteries featuring a detective but he has his Foreign Office fiancee and her sleuthing stirring up the stories and making them more interesting); the Lucy Stone series up in Tinker's Cove, Maine with all the recurring characters who all grow in different ways through the series (I like that!); M C Beaton's Hamish MacBeth and agatha raisin series (she doesn't write as well as she did years ago but the recurring characters in each series are wonderful as are the actual mysteries); John Lescroart's dismas hardy series (set in San Francisco, a lawyer and his family, friends and clients, trials, and always a very good mystery); the Nameless Detective series (Pronzini is a beautiful, thoughtful narrator of his mysteries); and the early books in the "Cat Who" series (I lost interest after the Potato Mt mystery).

Vee, I've bookmarked the Slightly Foxed site. I've read several of those memoirs, including: 84 Charing Cross Road - Hanff (a favorite) My Family and Other Animals - Durrell Period Piece - Raverat (another of my favorites, as you know) The Real Mrs Miniver - Maxtone Graham The Flame Trees of Thika - Huxley Look Back with Love - Smith A Sort of Life - Greene Blue Remembered Hills - Sutcliff I just recently acquired Bell's Corduroy because you had mentioned it previously, but I haven't read it yet. Hand-grenade Practice in Peking by Frances Wood looks interesting. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Somewhere I have a Virago edition of Comyns' Our Spoons Came from Woolworths. I'm not sure that I've read it, although it sounds familiar. I reread Blythe's Akenfield a few weeks ago. At any rate, I think you are right that misery is more interesting to a lot of readers than old boring happiness. That seems especially true when readers feel insecure, unhappy or miserable themselves, and the world seems to have gone mad. Counterintuitive, perhaps? Apparently not. I suppose the attraction might be: Well, other people have lived through horrible times and events; maybe my childhood wasn't as awful as theirs and things aren't so bad now, for me, after all. However, some of the memoirs listed above don't dwell on the bad stuff -- hardly mentioning it all, in fact. I don't like cloyingly sweet memoirs -- those I usually throw on the floor and kick under the furniture. The readable ones, in my opinion, strike a happy medium.

Karen - I have seen some amazing seedlings on another forum with RFK as the pollen parent. In this case, I believe RFK was the seed parent, though I think I read somewhere Hoosier Nancy saying that, in her experience, it was rare for RFK to set pods? Nancy, if you read this, please comment. I think that the gene pool is so advanced that you are most likely to get a nice looking seedling with the newer daylilies. And I have invested in some newer named varieties to play with next year - some by mail order, but the majority through the generosity of one of the daylily forum members. I realized, seeing the range of shape, color and vigor, what would be necessary for "instant gratification" (if one can term having to wait 2-3 years from pollination to bloom as instant gratification -LOL) - was to enlarge my gene pool. Come spring and summer, I will also make the trek to one or more of the many daylily farms here in MI to look for others. (Another Daylily Forum member has kindly told me of a number of them.) Unfortunately, nothing's closer than about an hour away, but it will be a nice daytrip. I'll take my Nikon. :) And on that subject, when one goes to a daylily farm, is it best to wait until the flowers are blooming so you can actually see what you're getting? I know this seems like a no-brainer, but having never been to such a place, I was thinking the plants would still be in the ground rather than pots, and digging them while blooming doesn't seem the best thing to do. You see my question? Alex

Bev, the old vaccine, Zostavax, was a live virus with limited protective power which was only about 50% at best and decreased over the years. I had mine 10 years ago. The new vaccine, Shingrix, is a dead virus given in two shots, and it has a much higher protective rate for a much longer period. That's why docs are recommending that even if you had the old one you should get the new one. Supposedly, you can't get the disease from a dead virus. I suppose my immune system was weakened by the two knee surgeries I'd had, so I became more susceptible to getting it, and the timing was just a coincidence. Just a guess. Rita, I wouldn't avoid the new Shingrix vaccine because of my experience. Supposedly, we have a one in three chance of getting shingles in our lifetime. It is not a pleasant experience, and I can see where it might be devastating to get shingles in the middle of another health crisis.