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Thank you Martha, I bought "Daddy's Little Girl" and cannot remember why. It must have have been her visit to Imus. I will send it off to the book sale at the humane society unread.

Mary Daheim's The Alpine Pursuit was okay. (Damned by faint praise? You betcha.) It's billed as an Emma Lord mystery, so I'll go out on a limb and assume there's more than one book about Emma Lord. Emma runs a small town weekly newspaper and, apparently, solves crimes in her spare time. I don't know that I'll go search for any more of her adventures, but I didn't show disgust by hurling this book across the room when I finished it. A solid C, maybe a C+.

Before You Leap: A Frog's-Eye View of Life's Greatest Lessons by Kermit the Frog was a Christmas present, and having finished it last night, I have now read the last book in my 2006 Christmas loot.

Before You Leap is a two-part book. The first part is a brief, actually very brief, history of the Muppets. Nothing I didn't already know, but Kermit's descriptions of his fellow Muppets are often clever. The Swedish Chef for example: "Here was someone who could get food to disagree with you even before you ate it." (page 50) Actually there's a CD Rom game called Muppets Inside where you can find out how disagreeable—nay, even dangerous—vegetables can be. (Am I revealing too much? Will you respect me the next time I post something serious?)

The second part is a how-to treatise, explaining for the most part how to get along with others. It's heavy on the subject of friendship, the best passage IMHO being a bit of dialogue between Kermit and Fozzie.

And that put me in mind of a conversation I had one Thanksgiving in the 80s. Homer Hickam, curiously enough, was part of the conversation. Now Homer is Huntsville's premier writer, author first of Rocket Boys, which became the movie October Sky. I knew Homer before all his fame when his second wife, active in community theatre, was a friend of mine. One fall I had planned to go home to see my parents in DC for Thanksgiving. MS, however, had other ideas and started to worsen the Tuesday before. I gave up on the idea of home and had dinner with the frequently-mentioned-in-posts Tessa and some other friends, including Homer and his then wife. At one point we were talking about my cancelled plans, and Homer said, "I don't know why you'd want to go home when your family is right here." If nothing else, Before You Leap reminded me of a time before my only reaction to Homer Hickam was jealousy. I find that nice.

Phil, I started A Thousand Splendid Suns this morning. So far it's as close to I-can't-put-it-down as any book gets for me. Review follows in a day or two.

Phil was right about A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khalad Hosseini. It's a powerful book that presents an eye-opening picture about the place of women in countries ruled by today's Islamic law. I also recommend it—with the warning that it's not light or fun reading.

From what Phil said, I expected emotional power. What I need not expect—and was overjoyed to find—was a truly engrossing story. One theory of building plot is that the writer chases his hero, in this case heroine, up a tree and then throws rocks at him/her. A lot of rocks are thrown in Splendid Suns, making it IMHO really suspenseful. There were times when I'd glance at the next page just to see how a scene was going to end. (Just a tiny glance, mind you. Anything more than that or anything that involves turning a page is cheating.) Then I'd go back and read from where I glanced.

I dog-eared some pages, but the joy of this book is not from meaningful or clever quotes. Its power comes from the horrors of the world it creates and, at least for me, the strength and surprise of everything that happens.

Yep, sometimes the author did capture a specific something with an economy of words.

1) The romantic interest, Tariq, is thinking about the heroine, Laila. "He knew she could not wipe away the obligations of her life anymore than he could his." (page 166) Wow! Characters with … what else? … real character. Back to Aristotle. Tragedy tells the story of a good—translate moral—man. And what if what makes him good is also his tragic flaw? I love this book!

2) Pages 248 and 249 present laws that went into effect when religion became government. They're strict, horribly strict. ( American women would be shot at dawn.) But only one surprised me: "If you keep parakeets, you will be beaten. Your birds will be shot." (page 248, italics his) Huh? What's with parakeets? Anyone know if parakeets hold some position—either holy or the opposite—in the Islamic faith? Inquiring minds and all that.

There are a couple others, but upon second look, I think they might give away too much.

I have to admit that I didn't particularly like the ending. I'll grant it was right for a best-seller, but it didn't do justice to the book—IMHO. Still, thumbs definitely up.

I'm getting really tired of books that start out good and then dwindle into boring. Sadly, A Good and Happy Child by Justin Evans follows that now all too familiar pattern. The protagonist, George Davies, is a new father who cannot (will not?) touch his son. In order to discover why, he turns to journals he wrote when as a preteen he experienced mystic happenings. Perhaps the book's aim was to prove a little mysticism goes a long way. If so, it succeeded. But I sense its goal was grander, as it explored issues of religion, of good and evil, and their very existence in today's world. Did young George truly see a demon? Did he exorcise it himself? Did his experiences parallel those of his father who may have been killed by demons during a pilgrimage to South America? Ultimately did I care? Not really, but I do entertain a hope that if/when this book becomes a major motion picture, Hollywood's handling of pea soup has improved.

I think I had previously read THE ALPINE RECLUSE by Mar Daheim prior to this latest period of time spent in the fictional town of Alpine Washington. Alpine is a small town with a weekly newspaper owned by the main character Emma Lord.

There is a murder, a lot of gossip, talk of the weather, and an ending that is very surprising.

It was a good way to spend the weekend. It just dawned on me that Mary Daheim's book titles run through the alphabet. The first was The Alpine Advocate.....the one before THE ALPINE RECLUSE was THE ALPINE QUILT.

Well I'm ready for "S".

Respectfully Submitted,

Kathy Albers

Guess I won't be sending The ALPINE QUILT or THE ALPINE RECLUSE your way.....

Smiles,

Kathy Albers

Reporting in: I'm almost halfway through listening to Ayn Rand's ATLAS SHRUGGED. Should be reviewing in another four or five days.

ATLAS update. Remember the interminable chariot race in BEN HUR? Five fish to go, four fish to go, etc? There's an ATLAS parallel: Fifteen disks to go. Or: "Fifteen disks on the wall, fifteen disks on the wall. Take one down etc."

AARGH!

I remember reading both Atlas Shrugged and Fountainhead in my college days. Ann Ryand and Leon Uris were my first venture into "adult" fiction beyond required reading lists.

I enjoyed them then. I have absolutely no desire to re visit any of them.

I must say that after reading the last Mary Daheim books and now reading Janet Evavonivich, I think too much candy can be a BAD BAD thing. I'm finishing JE's "13" book and will post a review of five books in five days and then I'm turning to some good Newberry books.

Kathy