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I'll give it a try. Even at 700 pages.

And the bardo sounds like a possible setting for a play.

The alternate-history idea does still intrigue me.

One of the features I love about my Kindle is that I am able to go back to books I never read for either free or cheap. I am almost finished with F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise which I am thoroughly entertained by, despite being nearly a century old. $1 is just the right price too.

Took my Kindle with me to the doctor's office the other day and it makes it so easy to carry around, read everywhere and not lose my place with the bookmark falls out.

Am told they will be lowering the price soon.

I remember reading an alternate history book years ago called The Indians Won by Martin Cruz Smith. As I recall, after the battle at Little Big Horn, the Indian tribes all group together and form their own country. Seems as though there were some European investors involved. I don't remember much more than that, but I enjoyed it.

I just finished listening to Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, narrated by Norman Dietz. I bought it for a car trip and finished it up a few days ago. I thoroughly enjoyed it and Dietz was excellent with all the different voices.

I'm now trying to get through The Private Patient by P.D. James, so that I can move on to James Lee Burke's daughter Alafair's novel, Angel's Tip.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick was a Christmas present. I'd never heard of it. It's a children's book that in terms of size could have served adequately as a doorstop for those wooden doors in medieval castles. I dreaded reading it. But I shouldn’t have. Last night I started it; I finished ten minutes ago.

The most amazing pen-and-ink drawings comprise at least sixty percent of the book. The rest is a narrative that involves orphans and clock repairing and a toy store and the history of the movies and how everything fits together. There's no bio of the author but by the end of the book I was wondering a whole lot about family lines and his last name.

At a minimum I recommend that sometime when you're in a library or bookstore, you find the book and take a look at the drawings. It's a book I'm definitely keeping.

Isn't that fantastic? My wife bought it for our granddaughter as a Christmas gift when she was only one (the granddaughter). She's not old enough really to have it read to her yet but she loves looking through the pictures! For hours. I have been tempted to steal it on more than one occasion and almost bought a copy for myself last time we were in the book store!

'Splain, please?

Sorry for not writing clearly. James Lee Burke has a daughter named Alafair Burke. She has written a novel called "Angel's Tip." My husband is reading it right now.

From Wikipedia:



EmmaG

Wow. I only knew Dave Rochibeaux (sp?) had a daughter named Alafair, who is currently (last book I read) at Reed. OMG. Reality and fiction. They're blurring again.

My two-book recommendation to anyone connected with children includes Fables by Arnold Lobel and Once upon a time, the End (asleep in 60 seconds) by Geoffrey Kloske and Barry Brit. I thought both were really for adults until a nurse remarked that her six-year-old's favorite book was Fables. I'll probably reread them both this afternoon. Maybe twice.

About four years ago I ordered the paperback edition of Christmas at The New Yorker: Stories, Poems, Humor, and Art. It arrived, and I put it somewhere to be read during the Christmas season. I found it the next January and again put it somewhere to be read during the Christmas season. The pattern repeated itself two more times. Then this past January when once again I found the book, I was no longer willing to illustrate Benjamin Franklin's definition of insanity. I put Christmas at The New Yorker in the middle of the shelf of unreads, and for the past two days I've celebrated Christmas in July.

The book was pretty good. Most of the stories were interesting, and any book that has cartoons and pictures by Charles Addams could never disappoint. Highlights:

1) In a 1960's takeoff of O'Henry's "The Gift of the Magi," the girl takes one look at the crew cut of her hippie boyfriend and "stared as if he were something she had discarded in Scarsdale." (page 41) How perfect, IMHO. Weren't hippies always discarding remnants of Scarsdale, Shaker Heights, Bethesda or Pasadena?

2) In "Crèche" by a Richard Ford—a writer whom I'll be checking out later—there's a wonderful exchange as an uncle irritates a niece. "'It's a town in Michigan where they make fences,' Roger says. 'Fencing, Michigan. It's near Lancing.'" (page 163) Big smile. It amused me.

3) Same story. "Both girls have now become sleepy. There has been too much excitement, or else not enough. Their mother is in rehab. Their dad is an [censored]. They're in Michigan. Who wouldn't be sleepy?" (page 170) Yep. Gonna be checking out that Richard Ford.

4) And at the top of the same page (170), there's a Charles Addams' cartoon where a little girl is playing with a dollhouse under the Christmas tree. Right beside the dollhouse is a smoldering stack of leaves (pieces of paper) and right around the corner is the little brother, driving a toy fire truck, a fiendish smile on his face. I could have stayed on that page forever.

5) Another cartoon (page 214), not Addams but it could have been. Santa and a reindeer are dancing. Caption: "No, this is crazy. We mustn't."

6) Finally, a philosophical note in a story by John Updike—not one of my favorite writers but he sure nails something here. "Strange people look ugly only for a while, until you fill in those tufty monkey features with a little history and stop seeing their faces and start seeing their lives." (page 221) I've certainly found that to be true.

So, I recommend Christmas at The New Yorker. IMHO, it's worth reading at any time of year.

Grammar question: Christmas at The New Yorker seems logically correct to me because something that should be in italics in an already italicized phrase loses the italics—but Christmas at The New Yorker looks better. Anyone know which it should be?