The one I liked… A beautifully produced book with quantities of illustrations from Cruikshank cartoons to Raeburn family portraits in oil. If you’re a fan of Jane’s and especially if you’re a devotee of Georgette Heyer, you will love paging through to find treasures like the pen-and-ink drawing of the 24 different styles of men’s…
Day 4: Fort Nelson to Watson Lake The reason we drove like madwomen yesterday was so Sharyn could spend two hours parbroiling herself in Liard Hot Springs. I went for a walk instead, along a boardwalk bordered with wildflowers that had no business growing at this latitude, including an entire marsh filled to the brim…
Read more A section of highway with multiple personality disorder
Excerpt… Wu Cheng was seen to be pacing impatiently up and down in front of the East Gate of Chang’an, alternately kicking and cursing any camel unfortunate enough to get in his way. Johanna waved. “Uncle Cheng! Uncle Cheng!” He halted, staring at the three horses galloping in his direction, and then waved back vigorously…
I read Simon Winchester’s Pacific a few years back and found it both dour and sour. Not a keeper. So when I stumbled across a paperback copy of this book at the HPL Book and Plant Sale, I thought why not give it a try? One thing I had to keep strictly in mind was that Winchester’s…
Read more Allow for the fact that this is a Greatest Generation guy
Please beware of buffalo on the highway as you travel north. They often lay right on the driving lanes. Bison are very large and can do considerable damage to a tractor-trailer unit. Reduce your speed and be vigilant! —sign on the door of Liard Hotsprings Lodge, mile 477.8 MY DAD DROVE THE ALCAN for the first…
Excerpt… NORTH WIND WAS not the only priceless possession to have gone missing in Cambaluc that morning. The house of the late, honorable Wu Li was in an uproar as his widow stormed through every room, leaving chaos in her wake. Drawers were yanked out, their contents dumped on the floor, the drawers tossed aside.…
Meet Henrietta Mouse, Architect. She has a positive genius for designing, building, and decorating that perfect personal palace for any animal of her acquaintance. Squirrel asks for a spaceship and just about gets one (love the windsock). Lizard gets a solarium and Trout an underwater garden that would do Versailles proud. Pig really goes to…
Read more There Ms. Mouse consults with Porcupine, her landscaper.
At first the road perched on the edge of a continuous precipitous chasm that fell to the Fortymile River far, far below, producing beautiful if terrifying views. Then it plunged what felt like straight down to run for a few miles right next to the river, we were close enough to look for salmon (didn’t…
Read more A tiny gem of a town perched at the very edge of the Yukon River itself
Excerpt… 1322, Cambaluc “MY HUSBAND IS dead,” the widow said. Not “Your father.” Not the more formal “The head of the house of Wu.” Just the exclusive, proprietary “My husband.” The widow was selfish even in her alleged grief. There was also a hard glitter of triumph in her dark eyes, for those with the…
A multiple-caper novel, because of course the first one goes horribly awry, and the kicker is all the capers take place in a community on the moon about a hundred years from now. Great characters, lots of tech, lots of fun, and it shortened the hell out of a 5 1/2 hour plane ride from…
