Five reasons I want to move to Scotland

1. It's socially acceptable to eat scones for breakfast AND tea.

2. I'm pretty sure I'd giggle forever if Noel ever put on a kilt.

3. I could say words in indecipherable English. Things like "awae wi ye"!

4. Edinburgh sounds like an amazing place to live--full of spectacular architecture, a varied history, and a hilariously dour population.

5. I'm kind of in love with John Rebus. In the last month I've read six Ian Rankin books. I read one a few months ago, without realizing I started with the 18th in the series or something like that. I liked Rebus's character at that point, but I wasn't particularly hooked until I started with book one, Knots and Crosses, and am now through Mortal Causes, book six. Reading them in order makes Rebus come to life. You catch the little references about the fringe characters in his life that carry on from book to book. It's also possible to watch his character change, often as a result of the changing women in his life. His ongoing battles with 'whisky' and cigarrettes make him real, a little bit depressing, and a little bit funny, in a very Scottish sort of way.

I'm definitely hooked! So awae wi ye, I've got more Ian Rankin books to read!

Books, books, books!

It's official: Barbara Nadel is too creepy for me. I finished Harem, and in spite of the appeal of Inspector Ikmen, the weird sexual predilections of the minor characters disturbs me. Plus I feel bad for poor Inspector Ikmen, overwhelmed by the combination of his nine children and his duties on the Istanbul police force. While it's nice to have a detective with a family for once (as opposed to the usual divorced, moody, alchoholic types) I think I'll stick with Donna Leon and Commisario Guido Brunetti when I want a contented detective.

Speaking of divorced, moody, alchoholic detectives, I finished Ian Rankin's The Naming of The Dead. While I think the end was a bit obvious, and the whole G8 Summit setting dragged a bit, I enjoyed the character of DI John Rebus, and his interaction with DS Siobhan Clarke. I appreciated the fact that not all of the loose ends were tied up at the end, and that although Rebus is rather stereotypical in a lot of ways, he's still funnier than most other alchoholic detectives.

In The Naming of The Dead Rebus and Clarke are working to try and simultaneously solve the murder of a bouncer-turned-rapist that appears to have been killed by a serial killer, a possible suicide of an MP, and an attack on an innocent woman in a protest of the G8 in downtown Edinburgh. The city is in chaos, with thousands of extra cops and special service guys called in to help with the G8 and the ensuing protests. Rebus and Siobhan (pronounced Sha-vonne) have to deal with traffic snarls, secretive special forces, a Chief who wants them to lay low on the murder(s) till the G8 is over, and complications in their own personal lives. It felt a bit like I'd read parts of it before in some other mystery, but parts of it were really funny, and I liked the character of Rebus. I'll definitely give Rankin another shot--but try an earlier book in the hope that it will be a little more original, I'll keep you posted on the results!

On a non-mystery note, the first book club pick was Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky. I think perhaps the reviews I read of this book were a bit inflated. I was certainly expecting more than what it was after reading other reviews. By and large I thought it was pretty good, but it definitely had some strange "schmaltzy" moments, and a few odd plot holes. Since I knew that Nemirovsky died at Auschwitz, and thus was unable to edit or finish the novel, I think I kept reading more into it than was really there, ie "Well this part is a bit far-fetched, but she probably would've fixed it if she'd had a chance."

Nemirovsky did an excellent job of showing how the German invasion affected many different people, and gave brief evocative glimpses into their lives. The term "Suite Francaise" is, however, misleading--really the book is two short novellas that were published together. The first novella, Storm in June, gives rapid looks at about twenty different characters who are all fleeing Paris into the countryside, trying to stay one step ahead of the Germans. Some of the characters, such as Maurice and Jeanne Michaud are very likeable, some such as Charles Langelet are eminently non-likeable. The confusion brings out the best in some people, and the worst in others.

The second novella, Dolce, gives a more in depth look at the lives of villagers in a German occupied town. Lucile Angellier, a young French wife whose husband is a POW in Germany, finds herself with conflicted feelings for the German officer stationed in the Angellier home. Some other villlagers have much more confrontational reactions with the Germans, while some are content to collaborate. The two books are very different, and in our book club some people preferred the second, but I preferred the first. I liked the short chapters, and the quick glimpses at people that suggested the whole history condensed into just a few paragraphs. The second book was good, but seemed to drag in some spots. All in all I'd give it a B+, I can forgive the weak spots due to Nemirovsky's beautiful prose, and the amazing history behind the book and the survival of the manuscript.

Saturday Afternoons

There is nothing better than a lazy Saturday after a looong week. This week we remodeled at work, meaning that everyone was busier than normal and more stressed than normal. Normally on a Friday night after a week like that I probably would've gone to bed early with a good book, but instead I went to church and spent five hours shepherding dozens of shrieking/laughing/crazy(!) children. It was fun, but EXHAUSTING. Completely exhausting.

Then I came home to find my husband (finally!) and had a nice lazy sleeping-in sort of morning with him. I made sausage and cheesy scrambled eggs for breakfast, and then he ran errands while I finished the lesson for church tomorrow morning and balanced the budget, my two small bits of productivity. Now, however, I have successfully wasted at least an hour online. Next on my agenda is playing some more Scrabulous, and then making some oven-roasted kielbasa, potatoes and onions for dinner, yummy! My biggest dilemma is what to make for the picnic tomorrow. I'm torn between my favorite dark chocolate and white chocolate chip cookies, or peanutbutter kiss cookies. Since I will probably single-handedly devour any and all dark chocolate and white chocolate chip cookies tomorrow night, I think I'll make the peanutbutter kiss cookies, since those leftovers might actually last a few days around here.

My nerdy self is also debating bringing in the Ian Rankin audio book I've been listening to in the car, and putting a disc in. The downside to listening to audio books in the car is definitely the fact that I don't drive much on the weekends, which is frustrating when I'm listening to a particularly good book. I'm not sure yet if I'd call this a particularly good book, it seems like a pretty standard aging-maverick-cop-and-cute-sidekick-cop-investigate-series-of-bizarre-murders type book, but it has the added bonus of a narrator with a fabulous Scottish burr. (Brogue? No Irish brogue, Scottish burr. I think.) Anyway, after just a few minutes of listening I have to fight down an intense urge to try to imitate the narrator in my own pathetic attempt at sounding Scottish.

Plus there are occasionally words that really don't sound like English at all until I repeat them a couple of times in my head, and then realize that yup, the whole audio book is in English. It makes me think of a few years ago when I was staying at a particularly dreadful hotel in Paris, and there were hordes, literally hordes, of small children wreaking havoc upon the elevators/stairs/lobby/halls/anywhere they possibly could. For about two days we had been griping about the children in the hotel, trying to decide where they were from. Then one day, to my astonishment, when I was trapped in an elevator with 11 or 12 boys, who appeared to range in age from about 8-10, and who were attempting to climb the walls of the elevator while pushing on the little service box in the top, Mission Impossible style, it suddenly dawned on me that I had understood what one little kid just said. Sure enough, they were Scottish, but it had taken me two days to realize that they were actually speaking English! Once I had ascertained that we spoke the same language I informed them that if they didn't get down off the walls of the elevator NOW I was going to find a security card. They retaliated by pushing literally every button, meaning that the elevator made a depressingly slow stop at each floor, but hey, at least we were all speaking the same language.

(And on a total sidenote, I turned on PBS a few minutes ago for background noise since I decided I wasn't quite nerdy enough for audio books indoors, and as I was typing the above paragraph the narrator started talking in a ridiculous burr about the sights of Glasgow. Way to go Scottish synchronicity!)