Sunday, January 21, 2007

Before Dawn on a Snowy Day

This weekend, the snow came. Yesterday and last night we got about 3 inches of snow, nice sticky snow that covered the branches of trees and bushes. Outside is a winter wonderland. I woke up really early this morning because it was so light outside. I have a few pictures, but will take more once the some comes up and I will share them all.

I have also finished two knitting projects: The Blue-Ribbon Wrap (seen below)



and the green-lace scarf from Victorian Lace Today, of which I don't yet have a picture as I did not finish it until last night.


Book Report

I also finished listening to an audiobook on Friday night: "Jane Austen and the Genius of the Place" by Stephanie Barron, read by, get this, Kate Reading. This book is the fourth in a series of fictional murder mysteries "solved" by Jane Austen (or in this case, experienced by). The premise is that these books are based off of diaries and letters found in Jane Austen's belongings. The book definitely gave you a sense of place and time, and are written much in the style of Jane Austen's books. There is focus on witty conversation, the social structure of the time, and on clothes and style. Jane does some "sleuthing" (digging through some ashes to find burnt letters), but most of her information comes from her brothers (one of whom is the justice) as they ask her to help them think about who the murderer could be. However, this particular book became rather tedious. The characters go round and round about "who done it" and yet never come close to the real answer. There are a lot of suspects and they just keep piling up throughout the book. And in the end, the pay-off was not worth the tedium. So, as a mystery, it was not one of the best I have read, but it was good as a character study of the main characters. It just was not very suspenseful. A few months ago I had read a later book in the series "Jane Austen and his Lordship's Legacy", which I enjoyed much more and remember being more suspenseful. I would read others in the series if I happened across them in the library.

1 comment:

Jennifer said...

Hi Anne, Thank you so much for your compliment and kind offer. I am getting ready to teach two classes this semester, and as such have very little free time. But I would be interested in your recommendations for when things settle down.