The problem with saving up books to post a bunch of them at a time is that I have to find the time to post about a bunch of books at a time. My life is extremely difficult, I know.

102. An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken. This book was depressing. Am I allowed to say that? I should have known it would be - it's a memoir about the author's stillborn child - but I really liked Good Grief. This book was extremely well-written, but I wouldn't read it again.

103. The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel. I was really looking forward to this book, and it did not deliver on its promise. Manguel is at his best when he talks about his own library and provides facts about other interesting libraries throughout the ages. He is at his worst when he tries to transition (or, in many cases, doesn't bother trying) between topics. I'd prefer a little better organization. This book may be a compilation of essays on libraries, which would explain some of the disjointed-ness, but it's still not a good excuse.

104. American Shaolin: Flying Kicks, Buddhist Monks, and the Legend of Iron Crotch: An Odyssey in the New China by Matthew Polly. Polly has written an interesting and fun memoir describing the time he spent learning kungfu as a young man at a monastery in Shaolin. Accessible even for those who have very little knowledge about China and less knowledge about kungfu.

105. The Matchmaker of Perigord by Julia Stuart. In the face of competition, the barber from a small French town decides to do something completely different: he becomes a matchmaker. This book has a quote from Joanne Harris (the author of Chocolat) and the back also mentions Chocolat. I see why they'd try to sell this book to that crowd; in my opinion, this book had all the charm of that novel while avoiding the occult stuff that I found a little strange.

106. The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter. This novel, from my grandmother's list, tells the story of Baxter's (fictional, I assume) neighbor, Bradley, and some of Bradley's acquaintances as they go through relationships. I enjoyed this, partly because it's similar in feel to Love, Actually (although it isn't, in my opinion, as good). I see that this was also made into a movie with Morgan Freeman. Hopefully, they got rid of Baxter himself in the movie - in my opinion, he just added unnecessary complexity.

107. The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian. First, as a judge-the-book-by-its-cover kind of girl, I have to say that I really like the cover of this book. Laurel, the woman on the novel's cover, went through an extremely traumatic experience. She begins researching photos taken by a man who stayed at the homeless shelter where she worked, but she is soon more consumed by the project than any of her friends and family would prefer. This novel did a great job of touching on extremely serious issues without being too difficult to read. Some may find the ending frustrating; I do not. Especially recommended for fans of The Great Gatsby.

My manager's twenty-fifth company anniversary was Saturday. He normally brings donuts to our Thursday morning staff meetings, and I figured he shouldn't be required to bring donuts for his own anniversary, so I told him I'd bring something today.

My manager told my coworkers yesterday that I'd be bringing food, and the opinionated one asked me what I was making. I told him I hadn't really decided yet and asked him if he had preferences. He said, "Well, what's your specialty? What would you make if you really wanted to impress someone?"

Me: "Thanksgiving. I did that this weekend, and I'm not doing it again."

Seriously, dude, it's a Wednesday afternoon, I'm making the food for tomorrow morning, and I have a bunch of other things going on. You have to be kidding me if you think I'm doing something really complex.

So I made what I'd been originally planning - banana chocolate chip muffins and brownies. They were mixes. (The banana chocolate chip uses a regular chocolate chip muffin mix but substitutes banana for some of the water, and the brownie mix wasn't modified at all.) I found that extra-funny, considering how much work my coworker obviously seemed to expect me to put into the snacks - and you know what? They were really quick and good. Maybe when I have more time and energy, I'll make something more elaborate.

Speaking of "other things going on," my dad kept some of my grandmother's furniture in a storage locker for us. He rented a truck and will be arriving with it this afternoon (assuming everything goes well). We'll return the truck tomorrow and drive home to California (in our car) with him on Saturday. Dinner plan tonight: Bai Tong (tasty thai food). Dinner plan tomorrow: No clue.

We saw Al Gore speak last night!

( Summary of his talk. Don't read this if you're going to go see him - I'm pretty sure I wrote down 75% of his talk. )

I was impressed that, although he admitted that the majority of Republicans were against climate change legislation, he was clearly making a great effort to make his pitch non-partisan.

Last, he had some time (not enough, in my opinion) for questions which people had written on 3x5 cards before and during his talk. Most of the questions were not surprising, but one question said: "I just turned thirteen. What were you doing when you were thirteen?" He gave a great answer, saying that he had really fond memories of going on trips with his father (who was a Senator) when he was young, and that on one of those trips, he got to see Apollo 11 launch. He tied that in really well to climate change, saying that when Kennedy said we'd have a man on the moon in ten years, everyone said it was impossible - but less than nine years later, Gore watched the launch. In the same way, if we made a commitment to solve the climate change/foreign energy dependence/economic problems (he believes that the answer to the first solves the other two), we could do it. Of course, Gore was born March 31, 1948, and Apollo 11 launched July 16, 1969, which would have made him 21, not 13, at the time of the launch. But it was a good story anyway.

We each got a copy of his book, which is nice except that we really don't need two copies. We didn't stay to get them signed because people were already lining up while he was answering questions (rude!), it was a big auditorium, and it was already getting somewhat late... so, Sam, if you'll get your books signed, maybe I can send ours to you, and you can get them signed for us. (They did specifically say that he wouldn't sign anything other than that book, so don't bother bringing other books or souveniers.)

I did take some pictures, but they're pretty awful and still on my camera, so no pictures for now.

Okay, it's not entirely true that I didn't mess anything up at the dinner party, although it wasn't food.

I am really skilled at hurting myself, often with objects that aren't normally associated with injuries (example: plastic spoon). My sister is also excellent at this, for what it's worth. So, on Saturday night, I hurt myself with a wine bottle. Not a broken wine bottle - that would be easy.

As the first step towards opening a bottle of wine, I sliced the foil and then went to pull it off of the bottle. The sharp point of the foil stabbed my finger, under my fingernail. It's still really sore.

I didn't really mean for it to be quite that much work, but that dinner party was probably more difficult than Thanksgiving - since making single servings of everything is often more work than making one larger dish.

I made my mom's cranberry date relish on Thursday night (no individual containers on that), and then made fifteen mini pumpkin pies (in muffin tins) on Friday night. We woke up on Saturday and got to work, Brian on the leaves in the back yard and me in the kitchen. One nice thing about this meal: I was able to do a lot of prep. I never would have been able to do all of this stuff if I started a couple of hours before dinner. I made individual servings of stuffing in muffin tins, individual servings of green bean casserole in tiny ramekins, brined the cornish hens (water, salt, sugar, peppercorns, bay leaves), and parboiled the new potatoes. That way, "all" that I needed to do later was roast the hens, cook the casseroles and stuffing, and then heat up the potatoes with butter and herbs.

It did require some fancy oven work to get everything cooked at the right time, including the mini crescent rolls. Not only was this the most complex dinner I've made (for a dinner party) with the most guests, I was also really pleased with the relatively small amount of leftovers; we have three cornish hen halves, a serving of two of green bean casserole, a serving of stuffing, and a couple servings of potatoes. And a ton of cranberry date relish, but I'll eat that with a spoon over the next couple of days.

We had one guest bring a folding table and four more folding chairs and then set up the dining room with one long table (our dining room table plus two folding chairs) and all twelve chairs, but it was just a huge amount of people. I couldn't hear conversations going on at the other end of the table - and, of course, I was discovering things that are still at a friend's house throughout the night - we didn't have enough butter knives or matching dinner plates or dessert plates. It also took a while to serve everyone, and most of the food was somewhat lukewarm by the time we finished. In the future, I think that we'll generally stick with slightly simpler dinner parties, held more often with fewer guests, although it's nice to know we can pull this off.

Brian got Clue: The Office, so six of us played that after the other six left for various reasons. It was pretty fun, although it had obviously been a while since I'd played Clue.

Summary: Pretty successful. I didn't mess anything up, even with a larger number of people and more complex menu than I've done in the past. We're thinking of soup or stew for the next dinner party - although I'm sure I'll still find a way to make that difficult.

We've been in our new house for about a month now. The day we moved in, our neighbors to the south came over to introduce themselves. He works in the same building I do, and they have a cute 18-month old son. They also brought a really tasty apple "bread" (cake). No one else came over just to introduce themselves, but a couple of people welcomed us to the neighborhood when they brought their kids trick or treating for Halloween.

Leaves started falling from the huge maple tree in our back yard pretty much the day we moved in. Of course, we didn't buy rakes for a few weeks, so we have a shed full of leaves, waiting for their turn in the greenwaste can. (Exciting: we can also put food waste in the greenwaste can, including meat bones and pizza boxes! This means that we produce very little trash every week - we have a 20-gallon trash can.)

We seem to get a little wildlife: We saw a few raccoons in our back yard one morning, and we've also seen squirrels, birds, neighborhood cats, and a frog.

We've worked on our wallpaper pretty steadily since we got our wallpaper steamer: Our bedroom and closet are done (the wallpaper came down without the steamer, but the glue took a while to remove), and Brian has almost finished our dining room. (The dining room had a bamboo/grass wallpaper with a tissue-paper sort of bottom layer that's an awful pain to remove. He has spent a ton of time on it.) We removed the wallpaper from the "graph paper room" (so named because of the wallpaper), but I think we'll need to go back at some point to remove the glue. We'll need to procure a ladder to remove the wallpaper from the loft and living room.

Speaking of the loft: That room will turn into a library. My father kept some of my grandmother's furniture (and books!) in storage for us, including four (?) bookshelves (and a dining room table and chairs and a rocking chair), and he'll be driving it up from California next week. Of course, we also had two eight-foot bookshelves already, plus a couple of smaller bookshelves, so I'm sure there are lots of graph-paper house-and-furniture models in my future.

We haven't bought any new furniture yet, which I'm pretty happy about. One friend is bringing us a sofa on Saturday (we think his wife doesn't like it), and after we get my grandmother's furniture, we'll be better equipped to decide what we need. If any of you have interior decorating skills, your input is appreciated - we're especially indecisive about what to do with our living room. (It currently has a few boxes, three teddy bears, and Brian's new putter in it.) Even after we decide what we want, we'll probably still buy stuff pretty slowly.

In spite of our lack of furniture, we're planning a dinner party on Saturday to celebrate Brian's birthday (it was Tuesday) and another friend's birthday (which is tomorrow). It'll sort of serve as a housewarming party, too. I couldn't decide on a food-theme (they aren't necessary, but I think they're cute, and it makes it easier to decide on particular dishes) - we considered a camping theme - since we don't have any furniture - but I couldn't think of good food that I have made previously with good results. However, since we're often here for Thanksgiving and won't be this year (we'll drive back to California, bringing my father with us), I decided on Thanksgiving - but didn't want to be too repetitive. So we're doing a "little Thanksgiving dinner" - literally.

Cornish hens instead of a turkey (I bought eight for our ten to thirteen guests), stuffing baked in muffin tins, pan-roasted red and white new potatoes with butter and herbs, green bean casserole in little ramekins (there will be extra in a larger casserole dish), mini crescent rolls (one of the guests loves to cook - she offered to make the rolls, which is way more trouble than I would have gone to), with my mom's delicious cranberry date relish. For dessert, pumpkin pies made in muffin tins. And I got some mini pumpkins to put on the table as a centerpiece. I know the whole idea is a little ridiculous, but it's also a little fun - and I'm cooking, so I get to make the decisions. I have to make the pies tonight. I'm always paranoid that I won't have enough food, but I'll probably actually have too much - as usual.

Good Grief by Lolly Winston was my 100th book for the year. This is essentially a chick-lit book, which are pretty rare on my grandmother's list, but it feels a little more complex. The chapters are loosely based on the stages of grief, with some additions (the chapter titled Oreos, for example.) I often don't enjoy books based on grief, but although this book was heartbreaking in parts, it was also extremely funny - often on the same page. An excerpt relatively near the beginning of the book, for example: I could barely talk during the weeks after the memorial service. "Herg," I'd stutter when people asked how I was doing. They would touch the small of my back of gently cup a hand under my elbow. They would not say, "Honey, 'herg' is not a word." Winston's voice is great, making otherwise-ridiculous characters relatively realistic. At times sad and at others funny and even heartwarming, this is my idea of perfect reading for an airplane or a beach.

A Great Idea at the Time: The Rise, Fall, and Curious Afterlife of the Great Books by Alex Beam. I added a bunch of "books about books" to my reading list recently (after Rereadings by Anne Fadiman, I think), and this was one of those. Maybe because I'm young enough that I missed the Great Books craze, I didn't really understand that the Great Books in the title were the Encyclopedia Brittanica Great Books of the Western World, not just some great books in general. (That does explain how the book is so short, though!) This book tells the history of the Great Books, their selection, and the men who were instrumental in the printing and selection. Beam follows the men through their lives, often to colleges around the US, including the University of Chicago, Columbia University, and St. John's.

While I think that the idea that anyone can and should read the classics, I find the idea of Great Books-based college programs to be counterproductive in the "great books for everyone" concept: The only people who can afford to spend four years studying nothing but what was written in the Great Books are those people who don't need to prepare in one way or another for a real career, effectively turning those schools into finishing schools for upper-class men who need no more real skills than the ability to discuss Moliere or Thucydides. Beam even notes that St. John's graduates have to spend an extra year and a half learning Biology and Chemistry before taking the MCATs, because reading Fourier's old texts doesn't teach the facts that a modern scientist would need.

I don't have a problem with great books, or even the Great Books, but I think they are better discussed in adult ed classes, rather than as the entire curriculum at a modern university. And although the book may have been a little disjointed in parts, switching between the men behind the Great Books, colleges that taught the Great Books, and the Great Books themselves, it was an interesting read.

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks. When an old and beautiful haggadah appears in Sarajevo, Hanna Heath is hired to restore it. This novel tells Hanna's story, with interweaving vignettes about those who were involved with the book, from its creation to its circuitous route to Sarajevo. The story is made more interesting by the fact that it's based on a real book, with some parallels to the real Sarajevo Haggadah's story included where possible. This was a really lovely novel.

Chocolat by Joanne Harris. This delicious book starts when Vianne Rocher and her young daughter move to a small town in France. She opens a chocolate shop, befriends gypsies, and doesn't attend church, which does not endear her to the local priest. Although I remember the movie (with Juliette Binoche and Johnnie Depp) as significantly lighter and less complex, I think I actually liked it a little better than the book.

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. The first in a series of five books by Jasper Fforde, this novel follows Thursday Next as she investigates a literary mystery in an odd parallel-universe England. Sure, you have to suspend belief for a few plot points, but Fforde's vivid imagination makes it mostly believable. Extra points for a plot that revolves around Jane Eyre, which I've actually read.

General Washington's Christmas Farewell: A Mount Vernon Homecoming by Stanley Weintraub (from my grandmother's list). After eight years in battle with only one opportunity to see his wife at home, Washington is ready to be home at Mount Vernon by Christmas 1783. Unfortunately, he has about three hundred miles to travel first, and just about everyone in the new country wants to make a speech of thanks while he is nearby. If you're looking for a general book on Washington, this doesn't give enough of an overview of his life (as His Excellency by Joseph Ellis does), but it provides some interesting detail that a book on Washington's whole life might miss.

Mr. and Mrs. Prince: How an Extraordinary Eighteenth-Century Family Moved Out of Slavery and into Legend by Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina. I'm a judge-a-book-by-its-cover girl, and this one did really well on that front. Unfortunately, I didn't feel that the text of the book, which was the last starred book on my grandmother's list, lived up to the promise of the cover.

Abijah Prince was born a slave in 1706, the same year as Benjamin Franklin, but in very different circumstances. He married a slave named Lucy Terry, who had been brought to America when she was five or six. They lived in Vermont and Massachusetts, areas that we have learned to think of as abolitionist country. Although they faced some of the same racism they would have faced in the south, they did have more options for recourse, and they made the most of them: Bijah and Lucy took their hecklers and attackers to court, multiple times, often winning.

Mr. and Mrs. Prince do have an interesting story, but I didn't feel emotionally attached to them throughout the story. In addition, I was frustrated by missing details: Why was Bijah freed? Did he buy Lucy's freedom? If so, when and for how much? I felt like Gerzina ignored important details, but in some cases, she made assumptions based on what I considered pretty minimal information. I marked the most egregious case: When she is discussing what reasons Bijah and Lucy's neighbor and tormentor, Noyes, might have for his behavior towards the Princes, Gerzina explains that "We weren't able to locate any African American slaves in the Noyes family but did discover that Noyes's grandfather 'owned' at least one Indian. The sight of free blacks working such fine land must have been too much for a man who saw the subjugation of people of color as perfectly natural." Now, I think it's impossible to say with certainty that Noyes had some other reason for attacking the Princes and destroying their property, but I think she makes some major leaps in her reasoning here.

In summary: Interesting information clearly drawn from a lot of detailed research, but I think it could have been written better.

94. Digging to America by Anne Tyler. This novel begins with two families meeting their newly adopted Korean daughters at the LAX airport. One family is all-American: They're loud, they have video cameras, and the whole extended family is there. The other couple just brings one visitor, and they're much quieter, but they're no less excited about their new child. The families end up friends because of their daughters, and the novel follows their relationships with each other, America, the girls, and their countries of origin over the next five or six years. Charming, although not a lot happened.

90. Born Round by Frank Bruni: This memoir tells Bruni's story, from his chubby childhood through the first few years of his stint as restaurant critic at the New York Times. Personally, I would have preferred a little more about his time as a critic and a little less discussion of his extreme dieting, bulimia, and pant size, but Bruni's writing is generally funny and accessible.

91. Test Pilot by Jimmy Collins: I have a clear memory of looking through old books with my grandmother. (Maybe she had just moved to the apartment and I was helping her put them away? That would have been in 1997 or so, I think.) They were wrapped in tissue paper, so opening them was a little like opening gifts, especially because my grandmother knew each book, and I was seeing them for the first time. I'm afraid she told me things then about the books that I should know now, but I can't remember any of it. When we cleaned out her apartment this February, I found the books again. We took some of them to a used bookstore. I wish I had kept more of them now, but I did keep two books about military pilots that used to belong to my grandfather (who was a pilot and then instructor in the Navy): War Birds: Diary of an Unknown Aviator (not the right cover), which I read a few months ago, and this book, which is basically a collection of short stories about flying. As with War Birds, I was struck by how different, both in terms of reliability and design) the planes are from today's airplanes. Recommended if you like airplanes but probably not if you don't. (Good luck, though - it appears that the King County Library System, which has a huge selection, doesn't even have one copy of this.)

92. An Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett. Books change us, and in this novella, Bennett imagines how books would change the Queen of England, if she were to start reading for pleasure. She reacts like the rest of us did when we started reading a lot, except that lots more people are watching: she questions everyone she meets about what they're reading, making many of her staff uncomfortable, and she starts making up excuses to leave functions early or skip them altogether to read. This book isn't deep or meaningful or meant to be taken seriously, and some of it is probably a little unrealistic, but it was a quick, charming read.

93. Hungry Planet: What the World Eats by Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio. I almost have no words to describe how amazing this book is. If the last book was entirely superficial and fluffy, this is almost the exact opposite. Menzel, a photographer, and D'Aluisio, who authors the text to go with his photography and happens to be his wife, spent a week each with thirty families in twenty-four countries. At the end of that week, Menzel and D'Aluisio paid for each family to buy an average week's worth of groceries. Each family poses with their food in their home, such as it is, and the book provides a grocery list in addition to a few pages about the family. The families vary greatly in size (both the size of the individual members and the number of family members), location, and wealth, from a family of six refugees in Chad (the total street value of their UN rations for one week: $1.23) to a family of four in Germany (total food expenditures for the week: $500.07) and many other places (including a hunting family in Greenland, which I found particularly interesting, as well as Bhutan, Bosnia, Guatemala, and - of course - the United States). D'Aluisio doesn't pass judgment on any of the families for what they eat, but it's difficult not to notice that, for example, the family from Guatemala eats almost all whole grains, fruit and vegetables, or that fifteen people in Mali eat significantly less than even a family of five in Mexico. Highly recommended.

I saw a news article this morning that Boeing delivered a 777-300ER to Cathay Pacific Airways with a OneWorld livery. I have a weird love for special-edition commercial airplane livery; I think it's fun to be able to identify the exact airplane on which I flew later. I also just like the extra thought that must have gone into the paint job for those particular planes, whereas most planes get essentially the same paint job as all their airliner brethren.

( Behind the cut, pictures of some special livery examples. )

Of course, my favorite, both because it's a great paint job and an excellent pun, is the Salmon-Three-Salmon:

85. Anne of Windy Poplars by Lucy Maud Montgomery: Fourth in the Anne of Green Gables series, and the most tedious. Montgomery seemed so intent on packing it full of interesting characters that she largely obscures the plot. This may have something to do with the fact that this book was written much later most of the books in this series; Anne of Green Gables (1) was published in 1908, followed by Anne of Avonlea (2) in 1909, Anne of the Island (3) in 1915, and Anne’s House of Dreams (5) in 1917. This one (4) wasn’t published until 1936. As with a couple of other books I’ve read recently (Ender in Exile and In the King’s Service), I think that the author may have felt pressured by the pre-existing prequels and sequels.

86. In the King's Service by Katherine Kurtz: Another book that was relatively unsuccessfully stuffed into the confines of an existing plotline. Also, I really wish that Kurtz would have just started with one book and kept writing about the same characters until she inevitably killed them off. What happened to all the characters in the last book in the series?

87. Anne's House of Dreams by Lucy Maud Montgomery: So much better than Anne of Windy Poplars. Also, the plot made it feel oddly like it was written by the Bronte sisters.

88. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin: Great story, great guy, great book. Mortenson failed to climb K2, an extremely challenging mountain in Pakistan, and ended up in a tiny village in rural Pakistan after getting hopelessly lost on the way back down. Eventually, he finds out that the children in this city hold their classes outside (even in winter) and only have a teacher three days a week. He decides to build them a school - and that's where the story gets good. Highly highly highly recommended, but you may feel guilty about your 9-to-5 desk job after reading it.

89. Shanghai Girls by Lisa See: Very much in the tradition of Amy Tan's books, this novel tells the story of Pearl and May, two lovely upper middle class girls in 1930s Shanghai. This is all about how we relate to each other, not just how we relate to our siblings, but how we relate to our parents, our children, and our nations - both by birth and by adoption. This book deals with mature subjects, but I think most people who like Amy Tan's books would like this one, too.

Somehow, even though I typed up a novel in my non-book post, I failed to mention my "collection."

In August of 2008, I posted that a collections agency had somehow associated my name with a debt that was not mine. It turns out that the debt was for an ambulance ride in Florida. (I've never been in an ambulance, nor have I been to Florida.) I basically dropped the issue after that post, because I couldn't get anywhere in terms of getting the collections agency to talk to the credit bureau. And then when we were applying for mortgages, it didn't seem to hurt me - because two of the bureaus have removed the collection from their reports, my median score is still good. Our mortgage agent said it wasn't an issue, but it annoyed me, so I did some google searches and found a guy who had good luck e-mailing the president of the company and a high-level manager in customer service. So I send a polite but firm e-mail to them and - somewhat miraculously, although I shouldn't have been surprised - I got a very polite phone call later that day, saying that they would send all three bureaus a letter saying that the debt was not mine and should be removed from my credit report. At my request, they also sent me a letter explaining the situation.

Which turned out to be lucky, because a day or two later, I received a request for proof that I'd "paid off" the collection against me, along with an e-mail that made it sound as if we wouldn't get the mortgage if I didn't provide that documentation. So I sent along a scan of the letter from the collections agency, and that satisfied them - we're scheduled to close Thursday, a day early. (Whether it actually gets removed from my credit report is another matter.)

This post is about books, Chris. Move along.

The Sushi Economy: Globalization and the Making of a Modern Delicacy by Sasha Issenberg. I added this one to my to-read list at the same time as The Zen of Fish, and I was a little worried that they'd be redundant, but they weren't really. They had some things in common - the history of sushi and the Tsukiji fish market - but I didn't think they were too redundant. This book focused a lot more on tuna than the last one, and it did discuss the economics of sushi much more. Each chapter discussed a different issue related to sushi: The Tsukiji market and some logistics of sushi, the history of sushi, fisherman in New England, tuna ranching in Australia, a sushi bar owner in Texas, and Nobu Matsuhisa (at whose Honolulu restaurant I had one of the best dishes of my life, his yellowtail sashimi with jalapeno). I was getting annoyed with the book because I'd gotten pretty near the end and Issenberg hadn't touched the issue of sustainable fishing - but then he talked about it in depth, so now I can wholly recommend this as interesting and informative. Between the two sushi books, I liked this one better. However, it doesn't have the running narrative that the other had, which may make it a little harder to read, so your mileage may vary.

Ender in Exile by Orson Scott Card. I'm not a fan of Card as a person, but I loved Ender's Game, found the Ender sequels at least acceptable, and really enjoyed all of the Bean books. (I haven't managed to force myself to read The War of Gifts, though. It sounds like the Hallmark version of Ender's Game.) However, this book, published in November of last year and set between Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead in Ender's chronology, was not as impressive. A lot of it felt pretty forced, as if Card was only writing a different story than he would have chosen if he were unencumbered by the back story he created for later books. Also, I liked reading Ender's Game, then the Shadow books and then the later Ender books, and this book straddles all of the Shadow books, which sort of annoyed me. That said, I'm still excited to read Shadows in Flight, whenever Card gets around to writing it. (I just won't buy it new.)

And now for something completely different: Playing for Pizza by John Grisham. Have you seen The Cutting Edge? (If not, I recommend it.) This is The Cutting Edge, except that instead of a washed-up hockey player going to the pairs ice skating championships, a washed-up NFL player goes to play in the Italian NFL - yes, it really exists - for very little money and a little less fame. This is pretty far from the novels that gained Grisham his fame - even the title tips you off. But although it's pretty predictable, it's charming - just like The Cutting Edge. Recommended, unless the predictability would bother you or you hate football. There's a lot of football.

Brian complains that all I post about is books any more. That's because almost all I do is read, but the other thing I've been doing lately is paperwork. A lot of things managed to happen while I was on business travel, too, so we paid Kinko's (now called FedEx Office) a whole bunch of money so that I could print, sign, scan, and e-mail a number of different documents.

First, we sold the condo. That was a lot of paperwork, some of which was ridiculous. We went around in circles with the buyer's agent, because our agent had insisted on calling me Margaret MaidenName LastName on all of our paperwork, even though that's not my legal name. (When I bought the condo, I was Margaret MiddleName MaidenName, and I never changed the title. Now, I am Margaret MiddleName LastName. One form actually managed to drop my first name, calling me just MaidenName LastName.) The buyer's agent complained that I had signed Margaret MaidenName LastName (because my agent insisted) but had initialed using my legal initials.

Escrow is set to close on October 23rd on the condo. Our agent has been pestering us to close early; at one point, we offered to close early if the buyer paid us to do so, and our agent was obviously offended, explaining that the buyer was only offering to close early out of the kindness of her heart. If that's actually the case, it was explained pretty badly. We may end up closing one week early anyway - it does save us a little money, but not so much that we'll rush our moving very much.

We were supposed to close on October 9th on the house, giving us two weeks to move. The sellers asked to close a day early and we agreed. I've created an obsessive moving plan that describes when we'll be moving what.

I would hate to be buying a house if our credit was bad. Ours is good, and there's still so much documentation to be done. The other day, we received an e-mail asking us to identify any debt that was not listed on our credit reports. I have one student loan at no interest - so there isn't any value in paying it off early - on which I still owe a whopping $204. I filled out the form, listing that loan as the only debt that we knew of that isn't listed on our credit reports - and, of course, now they want documentation for that loan. Yesterday, if possible. If I knew it was going to cause trouble, I would have just paid the two hundred dollars last month! They also want full documentation on the condo because we will still own it at the time that the mortgage on the house is initiated. Because of the two-week overlap, they appear convinced that we will be renting it out; I've had to refuse two or three requests from the mortgage broker for a copy of the non-existant rental agreement with our new non-existant renters.

And, of course, there's the car break-in. Our car insurance is paying for a new driver's side window, and they're also paying for repairs to the passenger-side rear door. We absolutely cannot figure out how that damage occurred, but it happened during the break-in somehow. At first, the car insurance said that the cost of the new window would cost about fifty cents less than our deductible (funny how that works, isn't it?) but the window itself costs $30 more. Once you add in labor plus the cost of fixing the rear door, which we didn't really notice before, the car insurance is paying about $700. We have been told that, because we aren't at fault, our car insurance premiums will not be going up.

Which is, of course, not the case with our homeowner's insurance policy, which will be covering Brian's golf clubs. It looks like this claim will cause our premiums to increase by $300 next year. However, I think the premiums will go back down again before we've paid more in the extra premiums that the payout was worth. Brian's a pretty avid golfer and we carried a pretty low deductible, so they'll certainly be paying something for the clubs. The question, of course, is what they'll pay. With the car, we just replaced the window, partly because it had to be replaced and partly because we assumed that the insurance would end up paying the correct amount. With golf clubs, there are so many more choices. We had to itemize everything that was stolen, providing the brand, model number (where relevant), and age of the item. This became almost ridiculous; one of our line items was "one sleeve new Nike One golf balls," and the insurance guy said, "Well, what does 'new' mean? How long ago were they purchased?" Well, I have no idea, and I think new golf balls that I bought one month ago and haven't used are pretty similar in value to new golf balls that I bought three months ago - but apparently, the insurance company does not agree.

My understanding of this process is that the insurance company has a special golf department. (Brian spoke to one of the guys; he's a PGA Golf Pro.) The department often contacts the manufacturer to determine what today's equivalent of a particular item would be (Brian's ten-year old irons, for example). Then they pro-rate that value based on the age that we provided for the item. We'll receive an itemized list from the golf department (we're expecting it any day now) showing each item we identified, with two prices: the replacement value (what it would cost to buy something comparable today) and the current value of the item (today's value minus depreciation). Then they'll cut us a check for the total of the current values minus our deductible. If and when we replace the items (and, I assume, provide documentation), they will write another check for the additional cost of each item, up to the replacement value that they identified. If we choose to upgrade (pay more than what they identify as the replacement value), they'll only pay up to the replacement value; we pay the extra ourselves.

This all sounds pretty sensible; the question is whether or not the "replacement value" will actually be fair. I was more worried about this before I knew that they contacted the manufacturer, but I'm still a little worried. And, of course, Brian's frustrated that his clubs are gone. For example, we special-ordered his driver (his wedding gift from me) with a different shaft, which didn't add any cost at the time, but now that they're on to a new model year, we can't order anything except the stock shafts. Will the insurance company understand that, even though his driver is on sale for about half the price we paid, it isn't the same driver because we ordered a custom shaft? We'll wait and see before we get too excited - and, unfortunately for Brian, we won't be buying clubs before we see the numbers, either.

There you are; more than you ever wanted to know about my paperwork.

Read: Anne of the Island by Lucy Maud Montgomery. In Rereadings, one of the authors referred to this series of books as an example of older books that can't be considered classics because - although I know they worded it more nicely than this - they're just fluff. They are just fluff, and Montgomery is no Austen, but they're fun to read. This book, the third in the series, follows Anne in college, and it mostly centers around finding husbands for Anne and her friends.

Also finished: The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, from Samurai to Supermarket by Trevor Corson. In this fact-filled but entertaining book, Corson follows a group of students as they struggle through California's first sushi school, the California Sushi Academy. Corson has picked out three particular students to follow: one is changing careers mid-life, one is going into sushi against the odds, and one is pretty young and seems to mostly provide comic relief along the way. He breaks up this narrative with descriptions of the history of sushi and information about fish and other sushi toppings as they are encountered by the students. The format works, and although I wouldn't necessarily recommend this to people who are squeamish (for relatively accurate descriptions of gutting fish and parasite talk), I would definitely recommend it to any other lovers of books on food. (Oddly, it looks like this book has been rebranded - Corson's website calls it The Story of Sushi: An Unlikely Saga of Raw Fish and Rice.)

Read: Netherland by Joseph O'Neill, a supposedly fictional (the author has certainly lived in many of the same locations as the protagonist) novel about a couple trying to save their marriage in post-9/11 New York (and London). Also, it's about cricket, of which I have very little knowledge. The book was fine but wouldn't make my top ten list. (In researching it, I determined that President Obama said he was reading it in April, and then I found Obama's Labor Day reading list. You'll see two other books I recently read on there - Hot, Flat, and Crowded and Plainsong - to be honest, it is entirely possible I put those two books on my list because he read them, but I think I got them off of a yearly bestseller list or something similar.)

Read: How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill. There are a lot of pretty negative reviews on this one, but I found it pretty interesting. (Luckily, I have almost no memory for facts, so it doesn't matter much to me whether he's off here and there.) His thesis is that, after the fall of the Roman empire, the Irish copied a large number of mostly Greek and Roman manuscripts that would have been lost otherwise. This work, done in monasteries, was essentially a result of Saint Patrick's work in Ireland, whose history I found interesting. (I climbed Crough Patrick when I was in Ireland, but I did wear shoes.) This book was on my grandmother's favorites list, along with at least one other by the same author.

Read: Rereadings: Seventeen Writers Revisit Books They Love, edited by Anne Fadiman. This book, which was on my grandmother's reading list, had a lot of promise: seventeen writers read a book that they had loved when they first read it, either in their teens or twenties, and then discuss whether the way they felt about it had changed. I thought it would be fun to read re-reviews of books I've read by authors I've read. Unfortunately, I really hadn't heard of any of the writers who wrote the reviews (okay, I've heard of Luc Sante but haven't read anything by him), and I had only read one of the books that was reviewed (two, if you include the liner notes to Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band). Although at least one other reviewer said that you don't have to have read the books, I think that it would have been more interesting if I had read the books. To be fair, my grandmother may have tried to warn me against this one; although there was one book by this author on her favorites list, she read this one and didn't put a star beside it. I would also not really recommend it, especially if you haven't read most of the books that are discussed.

For what it's worth, here are the writers I can remember or find online:
Arthur Krystal
Dianna Kappel-Smith
Michael Upchurch
Luc Sante
Vivian Gornick
Allegra Goodman
Patricia Hampl
Sven Birkerts
Katherine Ashenburg

And these are the books or authors that they re-read:
The Leather Pushers by H.C. Witwer
Walt Whitman
Liner notes of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Flower guide
Christina Stead
Rimbaud
Collette
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Katharine Mansfield
D.H. Lawrence
Pan by Knut Hamsun
Sue the Nurse series