Needling and Reading

As you can see, the needlepoint is coming along. This is a picture of a woman in her garden. We start with the shawl she is wearing, not the garden. It's been hotter than hell here. So Cal is pretending that it is No Va. We've had humidity, thunderstorms and sudden downpours. Been there, did that, let's move on. And the gods have complied. Coolness is on the way starting Monday.

And I've been listening. Karen and I discovered a great mystery series written by Louise Penny. I remembered that the newest book was coming out in September. Turns out, it was the 28th, the day I looked for it on Audible. It is Bury Your Dead. This reader is amazingly good. I could listen to him for hours and I did. It was so good, I couldn't help taking it to bed with me. Of course, that meant I had to keep going back to relisten to parts I'd slept through. The series takes place in Montreal or Quebec or a little village called Three Pines. This book dealt a lot with the history of that area, the battle between Francophones and Anglophones. And Champlain, the French general. Here's why the reader is so good. When he's talking about the French general, it is pronounced champlawn. And when Lake Champlain in the U.S. is mentioned, it is cham plain. Very subtle. They solve three mysteries in this book, maybe four. Loved every minute.

And now there is Freedom. If you follow book blogs and read newspapers, you will know that this book by Jonathan Franzen was the literary darling when it first came out. Obama was reading it, every book reviewer in the country was raving about it, female fiction writers were jealous of the frufrah that was created around this one book. Oprah even recommended it, despite Franzen dissing her when she recommended his old book, The Corrections.

I'm half way through it. I'm not loving it. It's very well written. The characters certainly have depth. What they do, however, is driving me to distraction. It isn't mundane, but it is. People do stuff - some are rock stars and some are committed environmentalists. Some are just plain crazy. I won't stop until I'm done. Maybe someone will kill that mother. Maybe she will resolve her ennui soon and that will help mine. Maybe I'll stop wondering if I'm like her.

Really, I think I'd like to bury my dead and forget freedom.