I don't seem to have been reading that much lately. Too busy with travel and travel plans I guess and I don't seem to do a lot of reading when travelling. Read another No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency called "Tears of the Giraffe"...simple, charming, delightful as always. I guess I will tire of these stories because there isn't really much to them but for the moment I really enjoy them.

When we were in LA I picked up Shirley Hazzard's memoir on encounters with Graham Greene called "Greene on Capri". They both had houses there and met frequently over the years. I bought it for Jim really but surprised myself by reading and liking it. Generally I'm not thrilled with memoirs.

Noticed the Shirley Hazzard had a new book out (first one 20 years after "The Transit of Venus") called "The Great Fire"...all about the aftermath of WW II. I think it quite captures that end of war chaos and people left adrift to re-create their lives again after the war and in the shadow of the prospect of another war. I enjoyed it and was engaged by the characters and story even though I sometimes got the feeling the author was using up material that wasn't really necessary. Something about the atmosphere in the book that I quite liked and I found I didn't mind these faults. Also enjoyed some very insightful comments by the male protagonist on the nature of women. Always rather interesting when a female writer writes through the male point of view and comments on women.

"Stones from Ibarra" by Harriet Doerr...another of my Christmas books that Jim feratted out.
Most interesting writer. She was the ultimate "late bloomer" - finished her Stanford degree at 67 and won a National Book Award for "Stone..." at the age of 73. Story about a California couple who sell everything to reopen a copper mine the husband's grandfather was forced to abandon during the Mexican Revolution. More a collection of insightful vignettes about the Mexicana and American cultures than a novel although it does hang together as a novel as well.