Quickie Book Review: Quaker Witness

Quaker Witness: An Elizabeth Elliot Mystery by Irene Allen. My Ffriend Poodle Doc loaned me a couple of these mysteries a while back. I'm not generally a big fan of mysteries because they tend to be so formulaic, but, in need of some diversion I finally got around to reading one of them.

The story takes place in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Elizabeth Elliot -- a sweet yet dynamic widow probably in her late sixties -- is the Clerk of the Cambridge Quaker Meeting. A female graduate student in paleontology at Harvard brings sexual harassment charges against her academic adviser, a rare challenge to the status quo within Harvard's rarefied academic environment. When the professor is murdered in his lab, the graduate student is the chief suspect. She seeks the counsel of Elizabeth Elliot, who believes her to be innocent of the charges and grossly violated by the actions of the now-dead professor.

Yeah, it was formulaic and not super well written, which is a pet peeve of mine. But overall, it was fun and quite informational as to the peculiar ways of Quakers. I liked the feminist angle, and the fact that Elizabeth Elliot struggles with moral questions about what it means to do good and whether the end justifies the means, among other things.

If you like mysteries and have an interest in learning more about Quakerism, you might enjoy this and the other 3 (so far) books in the series.

(Cross-posted at the Winter Reading Challenge, which ends tomorrow.)

Harbingers of Spring

These fellows were in our backyard this week. I suppose that technically, they're not really a sign of spring because they don't migrate, but this is the time of year when I start listening for their calls. We have a pair of cardinals that nests nearby in the summer; no females were about the day I snapped these pictures.

More Molly

She's just such a sweet dog, so I have to put up another picture of her. Last week her previous human came to see her -- my friend Susanne, who gave Molly up when she moved to New Zealand last fall. The original plan was to bring Molly over, but Susanne and her husband felt that the trip and subsequent quarantine would be too hard on Molly, and as fortune would have it we fell in love with her ...

Anyway, we were all a little anxious about whether seeing Susanne would be traumatic for Molly. As it turned out, it was incredibly sweet. Molly greeted Susanne like a dear, old friend and spent about 10 minutes licking her face and "talking" to her, while Susanne told Molly why she wouldn't be making the long trip to NZ. Then Molly went and lay down in her bed, and that was it. She did not seem at all traumatized when Susanne had to leave.

Meanwhile, Susanne (and her other 2 dogs, a couple of young Jack Russell terriers) have gone back to New Zealand.

Book Review: Land of the High Flags by Roseanne Klass

Originally published in 1964 and titled Land of the High Flags: A Travel-memoir of Afghanistan, Roseanne Klass' memoir has recently been re-released under the title Land of the High Flags: Afghanistan When the Going Was Good. I read an older copy, obtained through Interlibrary Loan from the Beloit College Library, and I enjoyed the full sensory experience: the old book feel and smell, from when hardcover books were actually made to last.

Whichever edition of this book you find, it is well worth the read. Klass went to Kabul with her husband in the early fifties, became an English teacher at a boys' school (and at that time, all the schools were boys' schools) and fell in love with the country and people. At this time, when much of the picture of Afghanistan that we get here in the West is pretty bleak, I found it really interesting to read about a different Afghanistan. It was not idyllic, not outside of the expatriate community at any rate. Women lived in purdah (lifted in 1959 and reimposed under the rule of the Taliban) and the country struggled to establish its identity, as many did post- colonialism.

However, Klass describes people of enormous grace and a country of exceptional beauty. Afghanistan is indeed a crossroads of the world, one reason why it has been overrun by hostile invaders again and again through the ages. In the fifties, when Afghanistan was friendly to Westerners and not engaged in civil war, Klass was able to travel freely through much of the country. Although, as an American, Klass was part of a privileged group in the country, in her writing she does not dwell on the expatriate community and tries to present something more than a tourist's perspective.

I found her description of the giant ancient Buddhist statues particularly poignant, given that the Taliban reduced them to rubble several years ago.

Reading Land of the High Flags piqued my interest about Afghanistan in much the same way that The Kite Runner did when I read it a few years ago. It is a good reminder that every place in the world, whether it is on the front pages of our newspapers or not, has a life and a history that is totally separate from its relationship with the U.S. -- if we care to learn about it. It is a reminder that the United States - gasp - is not at the center of the universe, or even the civilized world.

Klass is a good writer, too. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

(Cross-posted at the Winter Reading Challenge.)

This is What Democray Looks Like

Where has this week gone? Lost, it seems, in busy-ness and some recurring neck and shoulder pain (and I'm sure the two are related.)

As you probably heard, ad nauseum, Wisconsin held its presidential primary election on Tuesday. I decided to apply to be an election official. The elderly people at my polling place always look like they are having a good time, and I thought it would be a good citizen kind of thing to do, so I signed up and took the afternoon off from work to do it.

Last Saturday I went to a 2 hour training session. Immediately I was impressed with, not only the number of people there, but the diversity of the group: young, old, in between, all races. People really seem to care about this election in a way that I haven't noticed before. The city clerk led the training, which consisted of going over a whole slew of possible scenarios that could come up on voting day -- what id is needed to register to vote, when to issue a provisional ballot, how to do curbside voting when someone is physically unable to walk into the polling place, etc.

I was also struck by the feeling that the whole point of the voting process was to be accessible, not to limit access. Maybe the city clerk in Dade County, Florida gives the same song and dance to their election officials during training, but people seem to take it very seriously here.

So on Tuesday afternoon I showed up at my assigned polling place, the Gates of Heaven Synagogue in the heart of one of the largest student apartment neighborhoods in town. (Just as an aside, to any old Chicago blues fans out there: the official whom I was relieving was Jim Schwall, half of the legendary Siegel-Schwall Band from the sixties and seventies. Jim is a local guy, very nice, ran for mayor a few years ago.)

Madison allows on site voter registration, as long as the person has acceptable proof of their address, so from 1 p.m. until 8 when the polls closed, I sat at a table and registered new voters or filled out change-of-address forms. There was not any period of time when we were not busy. There was a window of about 2 hours when we were so busy I thought I was going to collapse! (Or as I said to my co-registrar, the last time I dealt with lines like those was 11-2 on 25¢ chili-dog Tuesdays back when I worked at the A&W as a teenager.) And still they kept coming. Right up until 8 p.m. (And one guy who wandered in around 9 when we were tallying the absentee ballots for the ward. He was disappointed.)

We use paper ballots and optical scanners to read them. Periodically the scanner would become full or jammed. At that point the site supervisor would call for the attention of everyone in the room. She would say something like, "Hear ye, hear ye. [Yes, she really said that. She'd probably been waiting her entire life for an opportunity to say that.] I need to let everyone present know that we will be opening the opening the ballot box and removing ballots. Those ballots will be put in a secure place and counted. I am not doing anything illegal." At which point everyone in the room would burst into spontaneous applause. And the mayhem would continue.

Wisconsin restores voting rights to felons who have completed their sentences. (Another big difference between us and Florida, besides the 6 foot piles of snow that we are currently experiencing.) However I did have a list, 2 pages double-sided, of possible residents of that ward who are on parole and would not be able to vote. As far as I know, not one of them tried to.

One woman who had worked at that location for the last 8 years said that she had never seen the number of voters go beyond 500. By the end of the evening the scanner had counted 1,319 votes.

I had no idea before this that absentee ballot are sent to the ward in which the absentee voter would normally vote. After the polls closed, we had to open, assign a voter number to and scan all of the absentee ballots. (And so much for confidentiality -- I got to see who a former student teacher of mine had voted for. Hee hee.)

Ladies and gentlemen, here are the final stats for the polling at Gates of Heaven synagogue:

Democrats
Kucinich … 8
Clinton … 233
Biden … 0
Gravel … 1
Dodd … 1
Obama … 997
Edwards … 5
Richardson … 0
Write-in … 3 (I know that at least one of these was for Russ Feingold)

Republicans
Hunter … 0
Thompson (Fred, not Tommy our former governator who hated teachers) … 0
Tancredo … 0
Romney … 1
Paul … 31
Huckabeebee … 9
McCain … 28
Giuliani … 0
Write-in … 2 (and at least one of these was for Rush Limbough, misspelled)

I got home at around 10:30 p.m., utterly exhausted. (One big problem that would be easy to address is the lighting in the building. It is an historic building, now owned by the city parks department and rented out for weddings, funerals, and contra dances, and the lighting, quite frankly -- and I'm going to use a word here that I always tell my kids not to use -- sucked. What gives? Bring in some supplemental lighting for Pete's sake!) I still don't feel like I have recovered. It was like being run over by stampeding ... probably donkeys, is the most accurate thing to say here, given the outcome. But it was an enlightening experience. If I do it again -- and that is an if -- because come November it will be even crazier, I know -- I'll take lots of healthy snacks with me and I don't think I'll do registration.

All in all it was a good glimpse into something that I just take for granted.

City of Immigrants - Steve Earle

Steve Earle gets it right. There are very few of us not descended from immigrants to this country. It is time to usher in a new era of compassion and celebration. I love this song.

Immigration

(Image is of a poster available from the Northland Poster Collective.)

Immigration has fallen off of the front pages of the papers, for the time being. However, I see the human face of our country's current jingoistic policies every day in my classroom. Of my 14 students, a full half are from Spanish speaking homes. Whether their families are here legally or not, I don't know. We don't ask.

In early December one of my students came to school and said that her mom was in jail. The police had come the night before and taken her away. Understandably, her family was reluctant to give us too much information. After several weeks of hearing that she was in jail, the child told me that her mom was in Honduras.

Early on, I asked my student if she had gotten to talk to her mom. She nodded, and said, "My mom just cried."

There is not a father present in this family. The children, a kindergartner and first grader, are living with their grandmother. Almost every day, my student tells me, "I miss my mom." One day she told me, "My mom is sleeping and she won't wake up." I can understand why she might think her mom is dead! We have a home communication system, where papers get sent home in a folder which the students return on the following day. Last week, my student brought her folder back, and she (or someone) had randomly stuck a green plastic tab on it. She pointed to the tab and said, "The police did that because my mom is in jail." When she was home sick on Thursday, she came back on Friday and asked me, "Did you miss me? I missed you. And I really miss my mom."

All I can say is, "I know you do. And I know your mom misses you and loves you very much."

My student is having a hard time retaining what she learns. I wonder why ... [she said sarcastically.]

I am heartbroken over this. What kind of cruelty are we, as a nation, practicing, to separate young children from their parents? This mom worked long hours, but she was always present for her children. She brought them to school, came to parent-teacher conferences, provided snacks for the class. I suspect she was caught in a workplace sweep.

It is clear that the INS is very selective about who they go after. Right now, the target is undocumented workers from Central and South America. I won't say too much, but if you are an undocumented worker from anywhere else, and your skin is the right color, you might have legal problems, but you aren't targeted for arrest and deportation.

I'd like to say that our country is better than this, except we're not. There's always a bogeyman, there's always a group that is singled out for institutionalized cruel and inhumane treatment.

I know, I know. I have had this discussion with friends who are quite progressive, who have little sympathy for undocumented immigrants. There are plenty of ways to get here legally, etc. etc. But the fact is, there are people here illegally, and from a practical point alone, what is accomplished by being cruel to their children?

book review: The Polysyllabic Spree, by Nick Hornby

(Cross-posted in part at the Winter Reading Challenge)

The Polysyllabic Spree is a collection of essays on books and reading, written by Nick Hornby for the magazine The Believer. Hornby writes a monthly column entitled "Stuff I'm Reading." This book covers 14 months, from September 2003 through October 2004. Each month's essay begins with two lists: one, of books Mr. Hornby purchased that month, and the other, the books he read that month. (The two lists frequently do not have very much in common.) He explains why and where he bought what he bought, and why he liked or didn't like what he read.

Off in the wings, like a shadowy Greek chorus, stands what Hornby refers to as "the Polysyllabic Spree", supposedly the editors of The Believer. They number anywhere from 8 to 100, and (according to Hornby) dress in white robes, behave cultishly, and are exceedingly demanding. He, of course, often runs afoul of them and expresses continuing amazement that they keep him on.

This is very funny stuff. Hornby manages to write literary criticism that is witty and to the point, but is also self-deprecating and without an ounce of meanness. I came across this book on Powells' website a few weeks ago. It was particularly timely because our local weekly free "alternative" newspaper (although for an alternative, it's pretty damned mainstream much of the time, and leans heavily toward our own homegrown Midwestern brand of sensationalism. I've tried to quit reading it, but it has a good music/events calendar and the last time I went on the wagon Eliza Gilkyson came to town, and I missed it! But I digress. As usual ...)

Where was I/ Oh yeah. Our newspaper, The Isthmus, had an article about the local music scene by a recent arrival in town, a guy who used to write for The Rolling Stone and Cream, plus was once friends with David Bowie, and so on and so forth. (Notice how all those claims to fame are worded in the past tense? I think I know why.) His article, which wasn't really about the bands at all, but was really all about him him him, and was very mean spirited and condescending about many Madison bands.

Readers, I did an unQuakerly thing. I wrote a snide letter to the editor. I said, "In Madison, we have a saying: Those who can, do. Those who can't, write for the Isthmus." The Isthmus forwarded my letter to the writer, along with my email address. And for a couple of days, I received increasingly provocative emails from this man. He was like a certain troll who has been banned from many a progressive blog recently, the way he twisted everything I said. I responded by being conciliatory, humorous, and analytical in turn and I finally just bounced his messages back to him.

Anyway, that is all a round-about way of saying that Nick Hornby, as a literary critic, is nothing like that. I've enjoyed his fiction, and I enjoyed these essays. There is a second volume, and I will be putting it on hold at the public library, as soon as I finish the other 24 books I have on my library shelf.

And think of this: If you comment on this post, you will be writing about writing about writing about writing. Trippy.

One More Heartbreaking Effect of War

This is an exceedingly sad article, from Truth Out, about domestic violence among military families and the Pentagon's failure to deal with it. It highlights how troops with pending domestic abuse cases against them are being shipped off to Iraq and Afghanistan for multiple tours of duty, then come back to a slap on the wrist, minimal treatment for post traumatic stress disorder and -- in a shocking number of cases -- go on to commit violent abuse, or murder, against estranged spouses and young children.

This last paragraph makes my blood boil:

The Army examined Erin Edwards's death as part of a fatality review program recommended by the Pentagon task force "to ensure no victim dies in vain."

A one-paragraph summary of the review seemed to discount the findings of the civilian police investigation. The summary noted that Erin Edwards had refused the assistance of the base's family advocacy program, while William Edwards had enrolled in it. It added that William Edwards had "appeared to comply" with his restrictions. Until the day he "eluded his military escort" and killed his wife.

Don't you just love how the report appears to blame the wife for her refusal of "the assistance of the base's family advocacy program" while the husband "had enrolled in it." Clearly then, she is to blame for her own death at her husband's hands.

And what the hell does that statement mean, "to ensure that no victim dies in vain." In vain?

It is such a travesty.

Maybe we do need a woman for president ... Just a thought.

Republicans Behaving Badly (But Do you Expect Anything Different?)

(Apologies to all crying babies. You have a right to cry. The Republicans don't.)

First, they disrupted a memorial service being held in the House for Rep. Tom Lantos who died on Monday, for a procedural vote:

But Democratic aides were shocked when, during the middle of a memorial for Holocaust survivor and Congressman Tom Lantos, GOP Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart demanded a procedural vote on the floor, forcing members to leave the service early, even "while dignitaries were still giving tributes to Lantos."

Can you imagine how shocked and appalled Republicans would be if the tables were turned?

But wait, that's not all. Then they walked out of the House in protest of two debates that were ongoing:

The walk-out came as the House prepared to vote on the resolution citing former White House counsel Harriet Miers and current chief of staff Joshua Bolten for contempt of congress for failing to obey subpoenas in connection with the controversial dismissal of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006 and 2007.

But Republicans also protested Democrat's refusal to bring up for a vote in the House a Senate-passed bill supported by President Bush to revise the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows the government to listen in on phone calls without a court warrant ...

... Angry Republicans rose to accuse Conyers and Democrats of ramming the contempt resolution through Congress, and continuing to politicize the firing of U.S. attorneys while ignoring other pressing issues.

Ignoring other pressing issues? Why just yesterday, Rep. Waxman was taking on that all-important issue of steroid use among professional baseball players!

"For some reason, the majority feels that after eight months now this is a pressing issue," said Florida Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart.

Hey, wait -- isn't Lincoln Diaz-Balart the classy guy who disrupted the memorial for Lantos earlier in the day? And haven't House Democrats been trying to prosecute Miers and Bolton for the last 8 months, but the White House and the supposedly impartial Justice Department have been stonewalling? Miers and Bolton, not to mention Gonzales, should be sitting in prison right now for their role in the firing of the attorneys! And don't even get me started on Bush, Cheney, etc. The contempt that the Washington Republicans and their ilk show for the American people is sickening.

I am so sick of these people. There is a glimmer of hope as impeachment investigations begin to be talked about ... but I'm not holding my breath.

Guns Don't Kill People, Eh?

Two school shootings reported today, one in Illinois and one in California. The one in California sounds as if it may have been motivated by homophobia. I am so sickened by our country's addiction to violence. There is another way.

Update from Huffington Post:

The shooting was the fourth at a U.S. school within a week. [my emphasis]

On Feb. 8, a woman shot two fellow students to death before committing suicide at Louisiana Technical College in Baton Rouge. In Memphis, Tenn., a 17-year-old is accused of shooting and critically wounding a fellow student Monday during a high school gym class, and the 15-year-old victim of a shooting at an Oxnard, Calif., junior high school has been declared brain dead.

Book Review: Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips

(Cross-posted at Winter Reading Challenge, just in case you were wondering.)

How well do you know your Greek mythology? It wouldn't hurt to take a brief refresher course before reading this novel ... or not. I found myself consulting with my 12 year old daughter a lot, who for some reason is well versed in all of the gods and goddesses, in their Greek and Roman guises. Even if you're not as knowledgeable as Sparkly Sea Cow, this book was definitely a fun read.

The premise is this: A bunch of the Greek gods are living in a dilapidated house in modern day London, where they had retreated back a few centuries when Christ came on the scene. Over the years as their power and fortunes waned, they were forced to take jobs and were slowly becoming caricatures of their former selves. A lovers' quarrel between Apollo and Aphrodite results in a momentous battle of wills that eventually pulls everyone in.

Into this scene comes a mortal house cleaner, Alice, and her sort of boyfriend, Neil. Alice spurns the advances of the lecherous Apollo with disastrous consequences, and Neil is called upon to be an epic hero. I won't give any more away.

I think I read about this book at the Powells' website. It sounded amusing, so I tracked it down at the library. This is Marie Phillips' first book, so I was prepared to be disappointed (again; it seems that Terry Pratchett has spoiled me for nearly all other fiction) but I thoroughly enjoyed every page! If you're looking for something funny and a little bit different, you might enjoy it too.

My Kind of Congress ...

... and The Onion does it again.

Local headline: Ash Wednesday Postponed

Until when? Thursday? Next Wednesday? Does this cut short the length of time during which one has to give up chocolate, or will a day be tacked on at the end? And how will that effect hollow Easter bunny sales? Centuries of tradition, undone by one snowstorm. This is obviously the work of the Antichrist. Read about it here.

December Pictures

I did a little photo organizing today, and thought I'd post some pix I took a while back. Here are photos of a couple of my December projects (finally.) The finger[tip]less gloves were made for Mr. E. and the mitts for Sparkly Sea Cow. I made another pair of the squirrel mitts in pink for Cinderbelle, but I didn't get a photo of them before she went back to college.


All of our ornaments have some kind of sentimental value. This one was made by Cinderbelle when she was 3, and I think she called it "Sinterklaas."


For some reason, these are oriented wrong and I'm too lazy to mess with them any more. But I'll just give a quick tour: the little plaid bear-thing on top was the very first ornament Mr. Ether and I bought together. (Awwwwww.) We found it at Pier One Imports and called it "the hapless child" after an Edward Gorey character. We call the Santa ornament "the proctologist Santa" because he looks like he is pulling on latex gloves.

Have I mentioned that Mr. Ether and I met in high school, and bonded over the fact that we had a similar warped sense of humor?

Ain't a Fit Night Out for Man nor Beast!

This is unprecedented. We have another snow day! I actually checked early this morning, before getting all ready for work, and then I went back to bed for a couple of hours. Now that's unprecedented. I must have needed sleep.

Tuesdays have now been designated "date nights" for me and Mr. Ether. (After 20+ years of marriage, one kid out of the house and the other kid only one year away from being a teenager, are we finally getting it together to have "dates"? Don't hold your breath.) Last night, because we're broke and because we had delicious key lime pie in the fridge, left over from Sparkly's birthday on Sunday, we decided to really kick up our heels and walk to the food co-op for our date. Whoo-ee, do we know how to have a good time or what?

But actually, it was a lovely walk. The snow was starting to come down, and the route leads us along a river and then on a bike path. We bought some essentials, and headed home. We got to a place where one bike path intersects another, and heard a plaintive cry for help. There was a man in a motorized wheelchair, stuck in a snowbank. He had his phone out and had called 911, in fact had the dispatcher on the line, but his disability (cerebral palsy?) made it difficult to understand him when he told her where he was. She was assuming he was drunk, which he wasn't.

Mr. Ether recently threw out his back, so he was wary of trying to push/lift the chair out. I was wary of dumping the man out of his chair. (I did that to my kids with the stroller on more than one occasion.) The dispatcher said she would send a patrol car, so Mr. Ether went to wait at the corner where he would be visible, while I waited with the man.

Nice guy. He was only a block from home, but had mistakenly assumed that he could get through in a place which hadn't been shoveled. It looked like he had been doing the same thing we were doing, making a run to the co-op for some essentials before the storm came. (Of course, we were on a date.)

The police showed up after about 10 minutes. During that time he and I managed to get the wheelchair out of the trench he had dug by spinning the wheels, and turned around, but there was still another small snowbank. With a steady push from the youthful and brawny officer, plus the bulldog-like power of the motorized chair (they are like little ATVs, which is probably how he got so stuck in the first place) he was back on the bike path.

We carried his bag of groceries and followed him home. Afterwards, Mr. Ether and I were reflecting on the whole scene: how good it is to live where so much is within walking distance, how hard it must be to be disabled and alone (especially once you're older and perhaps don't have parents anymore,) how we love the winter but it is hard for some people who can't get around as easily, how we live close by two different accessible housing developments and there are people we've just seen around for years and years without ever having met them, how it felt good to help ...

It was a very good date!

(Late afternoon update: The snow is still falling and is now up to the bottom of the car and completely covering the little angel pictured above. Everything has shut down -- buses, public buildings, university classes ...)

A Day Late and a Dollar Short (As Usual)

Yesterday was Blogging Amnesty Day, a day to recognize other bloggers and blogs. There was even a nifty graphic to cut and paste, but the motto said "Look Up, Link Down." It's the linking down concept that bothers me a bit. How about linking across?

I have this major inferiority complex, so I always assume that every other blogger has been blogging for eons longer than I have. I also tend to dislike class structuring, eg. "a-list" and "b-list" blogs. (Not to mention c- and d-list!)

When I first started blogging back in the dark ages of 2007, the whole thing left me breathless, it was such a weird and wonderful world. Now, maybe it feels more like a comfortable marriage. I wish I had time to visit all of the blogs that I enjoy every day, leaving meaningful comments each time. The blogging friendships I have made are very sweet. But I don't even update my blogroll all that often!

Anyway, I'll just point you in the direction of a few blogs that you may not have seen before. The bloggers that inspired me to start my own were Poodle Doc, the Quaker Agitator, and Caroline's Crayons. Once I got started, I quickly connected with Sacred Suzie, GoldenDaze Ginnie, Suzie-K and Pam at Cape and Tights, who are all part of a network of creative bloggers. Then my family got in on the act, so you can check out Enriched Geranium, Cinderbelle and Sparkly Sea Cow (who doesn't post nearly often enough.) Then there's Fran, Jan, and Diane (doesn't that have a nice musical sound?)

I love my blogging connections, so I hope you don't feel slighted if I didn't link to you here ...

Readers' Meme

Dr. Monkey von Monkerstein tagged me for a literary meme. "It was hard," she whined. But I persevered, and I present this to you.

Which book do you irrationally cringe away from reading, despite seeing only positive reviews? Harry Potter, books 1-7. I actually read through 2 1/2; they bored me and seemed awfully derivative. And I hate hate hate the way they were marketed as God’s gift to children’s literature. Am I being irrational? I don’t think so.

If you could bring three characters to life for a social event (afternoon tea, a night of clubbing, perhaps a world cruise) who would they be? Sam Vimes (from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series) -- I often tell Mr. Ether that he is lucky that SamVimes is a) married and b) fictional. Precious Ramotswe, the “traditionally built” sleuth in The Ladies’ No. 1 Detective Agency by Alexander MacColl Smith. I like her spirit. Ditto for Tiffany Aching, the apprentice witch in Terry Pratchett’s children’s book The Wee Free Men. She is spunky plus she’s an excellent cheese maker.

You are told you can't die until you read the most boring novel on the planet. While this immortality is great for awhile, eventually you realise it's past time to die. Which book would you expect to get you a nice grave? Ummm ... Moby Dick? (Is the originator of this meme a ffffan of Jasper Ffffforde?)

Which book have you pretended, or at least hinted, that you've read, when in fact you've been nowhere near it? Actually, none that I can think of. Well, maybe the Bible.

As an addition to the last question, has there been a book that you really thought you had read, only to realise when you read a review about it/go to 'reread' it that you haven't? Nope.

You've been appointed Book Advisor to a VIP (who's not a big reader). What's the first book you'd recommend and why? To Kill a Mockingbird. Because it is superb in all ways.

A good fairy comes and grants you one wish: you will have perfect reading comprehension in the foreign language of your choice. Which language do you go with? Greek, so I can read the Bible in an early iteration. (Like I said up top, I’ve never read the Bible.)

A mischievous fairy comes and says that you must choose one book that you will reread once a year for the rest of your life (you can read other books as well). Which book would you pick? Easy ... To Kill a Mockingbird. I read it ever year or two anyway. Although I also really enjoy Lloyd Alexander's Prydain series and Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising series every couple of years. And I never seem to tire of reading The Wizard of Loneliness by John Nichols, or several of the novels of Barbara Kingsolver.

What's one bookish thing you 'discovered' from book blogging (maybe a new genre, or author, or new appreciation for cover art-anything)? That there are an awful lot of readers out there, despite the fact that the “experts” say that reading is dying. Maybe there are fewer of us than before, but we readers read a lot.

That good fairy is back for one final visit. Now, she's granting you your dream library! Describe it. Is everything leatherbound? Is it full of first edition hardcovers? Pristine trade paperbacks? Perhaps a few favourite authors have inscribed their works? Go ahead-let your imagination run free. I would like to have hardcover editions, maybe even some first editions, of some of my favorite books -- both children’s and adult literature. I would like to have multiple units of shelving like the one unit Mr. Ether built for us some years back. (Mr. Ether is a very talented cabinet maker. Too bad BushCo has torpedoed the economy. Maybe the good fairy could give Mr. Ether a job.)

Now I tag Enriched Geranium, Quaker Fruit Salad, Tweetey 30, Quaker Dave and Poodle Doc. And anyone else who wants to have a go at it! And if you don't, my feelings are not hurt. I like talking about books, but these were some difficult questions.

Dawn Land, a novel by Joseph Bruchac

Drawing from his extensive knowledge of Abenaki culture and history, Joseph Bruchac has constructed a very compelling story. Set in the time period following the last glaciation, but before widespread European migration, Dawn Land is the story of Young Hunter, one of the sons of the Only People (presumably the Abenaki, one of the First Nations of New England) who is chosen to go out into the world to confront an ancient enemy that threatens his people. With knowledge that has been conferred upon him by two “deep seers” and only his three dogs as companions, Young Hunter ventures further afield than almost any of the Only People have gone. There he meets strange animals and humans of other nations.

Dawn Land was reminiscent of Lord of the Rings, probably because both Tolkien and Bruchac built on the classic structure of tales of the hero’s quest. There was a hero, a task at hand, helpers, and a Golum-like character whom you both fear and pity. But it was also very down-to-earth in the portrayal of everyday life. (People actually have bodily functions in this book, but it is not embarrassing - no throbbing members anywhere!)

Bruchac did an excellent job of writing about a potentially very alien world (to a reader like me) and making it seem accessible and beautiful. In his introduction to the story, he addresses possible criticism that he makes this hunter-gatherer society seem too idyllic, by citing both historical and cultural evidence, and the practices of modern indigenous cultures, to defend his thesis. At any rate, in addition to simply enjoying the story, I was very much moved by the ethic that was espoused in Dawn Land. I recommend it as a good read.

(cross-posted at Winter Reading Challenge)

Twelve.

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