Annie Knits

A Few Monday Things

So, there are a few things I need to talk to someone about.  You are nominated.

1.  I took dear son to the book store to acquire the new Riordan (The Lightning Thief series author) book last night -- I can't resist it when my kids ask for books.  When he got home with his book and opened it up, out dropped a hall pass from a local high school.  The only way I can imagine that it got in there is if someone bought the book, read it (at school) and returned it to the store.  For shame.  

That just puts my intellectual property panties in a bunch, you know?  You want a new book badly enough to read it?  Then own it.  Pay for it or wait for a copy to come available at the library.  Now, Dear Son's got a second hand book for which we paid full price -- tho I have to admit, whoever bogarted this book did keep it in pristine condition.  Still...

2.  There is a local hullabaloo brewing concerning Dear Daughter's high school.  The Sisters of the Most Precious Blood of O'Fallon MO founded her school 127 some odd years ago in this neighborhood and have run a school for girls there ever since.  Now, with out any novices for several years with a median age in the 70's, their numbers are dwindling.  They are looking for a viable way to keep the school and their commitment to our city alive while their order fades into the past.  And I'm thankful for that.  

They are running a capital campaign the first phase of which provides an endowment for future scholarships for girls in need and renovation for the current main building, built in 1957.  That phase is for like 7 million dollars, of which we've raised like 1.5 million.   The second phase calls for razing a 127 year old building and replacing it with a more useful facility.  These gals have used their best practice and decided that this is a course they'd like to pursue in the future.  Neighborhood nay-sayers have come out against the project, specifically the plan to raze this 127 year old building.  In a nutshell, I say that no building is worth losing the education of even one girl.  

I'm angry at their attempts to stick a spoke in this effort to keep this school here in our neighborhood.  The naysayers, to my knowledge, don't have and have never had children attend this school.  And they'd be the first in line to bitch and moan if the property were to become blighted in the end because the sisters ran out of money to run the school at all...

3.  Finally, the Wall Street Journal today ran an article about Walmart and Target and their toy pricing for the holidays.  Apparently, Target had been able to undercut Walmart's prices on some toys, so Walmart has reduced prices to just beneath Target's to induce Holiday shoppers to come to Walmart for these deals, and perhaps shop for other things as well.  

All I have to say is that $1.44 on a Recording Studio Barbie is not nearly enough savings to induce me to change from Target to Walmart. Not even in the ball park.  I have a Walmart prejudice.  So sue me.  

Two FO's today.  No pictures because it gets dark just after lunchtime now and the light was terrible.  One is a cowl which I cast on for on Wednesday.  One was a scarf I started a year ago and it just needed ends woven in.  I'm putting both in my win column, no matter the knitting time frame.

I wasn't Laughing at You

Dear Lady driving the BMW stopped at the light next to me at Lindbergh and 40 yesterday at 3:15,

That outburst was not directed at you.  Believe me, it was as unexpected for me as it was a surprise for you.  I was listening to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice for the umpteenth time and I had reached the very left handed proposal Darcy offers Elizabeth.

You know the part where he basically tells her that, Goddammit, he's fallen in love with her in spite of himself and in spite of his good sense and for God's sake, will she just marry him already and get it over with.  Or rather let the misery begin because all of his family and friends will hate her and her family and he'll never be able to hold his head up in England again.  Then he waits in perfect equanimity for her affirmative answer.  Which he is sure he'll receive.

Instead of inspiring tears, dear Beemer Lady, this portion of the audio book had me shouting with laughter.  If I'd been drinking coffee, it would have come out of my nose.  I'm not sure why, though.  I guess I was in the mood to find such an absurd, puffed up declaration hilarious.  

I kept right on laughing while she told him off too.  Dear Son, whom I'd just picked up from school, thought I'd slipped a cog.  And at the end of it all when she sits down and cries for half an hour, I was still laughing.

I'm so glad I decided to listen to this book again.  I know I've listened to or read it at least five times, and gosh darn it, I find something new in it every time.  This time through, I'm disposed to the humor in the book, which I haven't necessarily noticed was so pervasive before.  Oh, to be sure, Mrs. Bennet and Lydia are supposed to be funny perhaps, but they just make me uncomfortable most of the time.  I've found the book to be more ironic in past, not necessarily funny, but this time through, I find myself laughing out loud quite often.

I keep myself amused.

So my question is:  What books do you read (or listen to) over and over?  Are there any?

To answer, I will re-read almost any book and there are several (The Historian, The Time Traveler's Wife, Frederica, The Devil's Cub, These Old Shades to name a few recently) that I've read multiple times.  Some books for me are like old shoes ... they're comfortable.  I like knowing the twists and turns and I enjoy anticipating them.  I rarely feel the same way about movies.  Go figure.

Ten on Tuesday

Ten on Tuesday for today is 10 Books on your Summer Reading List.

My friends are soooo tired of my reading proclivities lately.  I was on a bodice ripper kick.  Nary a book from the cannon on my book shelf in the last year.  Not even from the NYT Best Sellers or Oprah's book club.  The only books in which I can generate any interest at all are Regency period romances.  Ugh, you say.  Wrong, I say.  

Because I've found a new love.  Georgette Heyer.  

Her books are very funny.  There is usually some kind of mystery.  She uses super arcane language... like I have to look up half the things the men characters say due to Heyer's use of colloquial conversational speech.  Love, love, love it.  The romance?  Meh... bodice unbuttoners rather than rippers.  Oh, and only ever 2 buttons.  But the witty reparte?  Makes my heart sing.

So my ten?  I found this list on LoveRomancePassion.com.  (Um.  Rrrright.  Actually it's basically a site where women rate romance novels, new and past.  Heyer wrote during the first part of the last century after all.)  

Here is the voter's poll from the site.  Ok, it lists more than 10... Which also makes my heart sing.  I'm one of those readers who loves to find a series to plough through.  Are you?

Best of Georgette Heyer's Romance: (Pick 5)

• Devil's Cub (46%, 92 Votes)

• Frederica (36%, 71 Votes)

• These Old Shades (32%, 64 Votes)

• The Grand Sophy (31%, 61 Votes)

• Venetia (27%, 53 Votes)

• Arabella (22%, 43 Votes)

• Cotillion (21%, 41 Votes)

• Sylvester (20%, 40 Votes)

• The Convenient Marriage (17%, 33 Votes)

• Regency Buck (15%, 30 Votes)

• Faro's Daughter (15%, 29 Votes)

• The Black Sheep (14%, 28 Votes)

• Friday's Child (14%, 28 Votes)

• The Corinthian (11%, 22 Votes)

• The Talisman Ring (9%, 18 Votes)

• The Masqueraders (9%, 17 Votes)

• The Nonesuch (8%, 16 Votes)

• Beauvallet (7%, 14 Votes)

• The Reluctant Widow (7%, 14 Votes)

• The Unknown Ajax (7%, 13 Votes)

• A Civil Contract (7%, 13 Votes)

• Lady of Quality (6%, 12 Votes)

• The Quiet Gentleman (5%, 9 Votes)

• Sprig Muslin (5%, 9 Votes)

• False Colors (4%, 8 Votes)

• The Toll-gate (4%, 8 Votes)

• Bath Tangle (4%, 8 Votes)

• The Black Moth (4%, 7 Votes)

• An Infamous Army (3%, 6 Votes)

• The Foundling (3%, 5 Votes)

• The Spanish Bride (3%, 5 Votes)

• Powder and Patch (3%, 5 Votes)

• Cousin Kate (3%, 5 Votes)

• My Lord John (2%, 3 Votes)

• Simon the Coldheart (2%, 3 Votes)

• Charity Girl (1%, 2 Votes)

• April Lady (1%, 2 Votes)

• Royal Escape (1%, 2 Votes)

• The Conqueror (1%, 1 Votes)

• The Great Roxhythe (0%, 0 Votes)

I've already read (and really enjoyed) The Black Moth, The Talisman Ring and Friday's Child as I started on this kick before I found the list.  Now I have Devil's Cub going and Federica in the wings.  Both on my ipod.  

So I can knit the green sweater...

Awright, Already!

Yes.  A hiatus from blogging.  I took one.

Now that I'm past that confession, I'll make a few more.

• I don't like blogging about negative personal stuff.  It just prolongs and exacerbates it.  That's why I'm not doing it.
• I drink too much coffee and I should probably stop.  Ha.  Ok, at least slow down.
• I've watched all of Monarch of the Glen that I can get ahold of.  It's a fluffy BBC series/soap opera that you can stream on Netflix.  It's addictive.  It takes place in the Highlands of Scotland and I love love love the accents.  That's probably why I watch it -- the accents.  I think a Scots accent is hot.  My GYN for years was a Scotsman so I should have relatively negative associations with the brogue, but my affinity for it persevered.
• I let my 13-year-old buy a lot of 24 Airsoft guns on Ebay.  The lot ended up to cost him about $50, but with shipping he had to cough up a surprising (to him) $97 dollars.  The whole lot is cruddy handguns capable of relatively short shooting distances ( evident from the sale description but the idea of owning 24 of them took hold of his fragile psyche).  Their arrival has been an instant cure forhis Ebay fixation.  And I have $97 to blow at Starbucks -- see number 2.  Tough love that gets me coffee.  I can live with it.
• Speaking of the 13-year-old, he was Confirmed on a Thursday and turned 13 on the following Saturday.  The juxtaposition of these two pictures amuses me:                                    
  His Uncle (husband's brother) is his sponsor -- and to the boy's credit, he took the whole thing very seriously and together he and his uncle really enjoyed the experience.  Of course the other is the only picture I remembered to take of my baby on his 13th birthday.  Crimeny. 
   
• Last week, husband asked me what I wanted for Mother's day.  I told him absolutely nothing -- let's save the money for our vacation I told him.  He didn't fall for it.  Once before, when we were very young -- 2 or 3 years into our marriage I'd guess, he asked what I wanted for some holiday -- birthday maybe?  I told him nothing, that I'd bought clothes, and he took me at my word.  Not a card, not a cake, not even a wish.  No acknowledgement of the day whatsoever... I let him know how I felt about that level of "nothing" and ever since then, he's a little touchy about holidays.  Ok, I told him last week, flowers.  That would be great.  How about fruit, he asked.  Fine. 
    The man in incapable of austerity.  I'll keep him... even though he doesn't have a Scots accent.  (What I also told him was that his being home for the day instead of in Saudi Arabia as he was supposed to be until the trip got postponed was gift enough...)

edited to add for Tracy:  The painting is by a STL native, John Peg, and I own another of his.  Husband found out where I got the first (for his birthday last year) and got this one because he knows I like Peg's style of painting.  Again, I'll keep him.

• The CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) group has started up again.  My confession here is that I heaved a huge sigh of relief.  Now I don't have to think about what's for dinner.  What's for dinner is whatever they decided we should have.  Did you note the key word there?  They.  The CSA people.  The farmers.  The powers that be.  Not me.  I'm a lazy cook.  Scratch that... I'm a lazy shopper.  I hate deciding from among the gazillion choices at the grocery store what to feed my family.  I don't mind 20 steps to a recipe once I have the stuff, I just don't want to generate the menu.  Tuesday night we had grilled trout with a lemon/parsely/white wine sauce, orzo with olive oil and parmesan cheese, brussels sprouts and bacon and cucumber salad.  Some of that was from the CSA, some from the pantry, some from the grocery -- family ate it all.  I just opened the fridge and freezer and cooked for 1/2 an hour.  Ah.  Freedom.  Tonight?  Swedish Meatballs (made with bison from Potosi, MO) over pasta.  
• My knitting has been as lazy as my cooking.  The new Rowan came out, it had three patterns in it for yarn I own... I cast on for one of them.  So much for the resolution that I'd work on a UFO when I finished a project.  Well, to my credit, I didn't actually finish the Peace Fleece Sweater... I still have to finish the top of one sleeve.  But the wool in my lap wasn't making me happy when the weather warmed up here so I'll finish it in time for him to wear it in the fall.  Yeah... remind me, will ya?  
   The specifics?  Rowan Magazine, #47.  The sweater is called Relax.  I'm more than half way thru the body and I've used 6 skeins of Summer Tweed, #544 Jardinier.  The yarn is interesting -- lots of VM, but light and the knit hand is nice.  I think it'll be fine.  If I could read directions and follow them I'd be further along, but the requisite ripping back of the neckline has happened twice.  Whatever.  Current socks are magic loop, two at a time, garter rib from Sensational Knitted Socks, using Flat Feet sock yarn.  I'd call this stuff knitterly.  The fun is watching how the socks knit up in relation to the dyed blank.  Paint drying holds more interest for the uninitiated, but sock knitters are fascinated when I pull these out at the shop.  I kind of secretly love them, even though, as everyone who knows me has commented, the colors aren't my usual preference.

On now to a quiet day.  Maybe I'll see you tomorrow ; )

Book Club Books

Last evening it was my turn to host our book club.  We've been meeting once a month or thereabouts since September of 1997.  That's a lot of books.  

Over the years, women (our club is a women's club... adding spouses has been discussed and discarded due to the fact that 1) discussions of fertility, breastfeeding, and menopause would likely have to be at least slightly curtailed and 2) we'd have to read books they like too and who wants to do that?) have cycled in and out of the group, but there is a core group of us who've been with the group from the start.  Now there are reliably 8 of us, sometimes more sometimes less, and we thoroughly enjoy each other's company.

Oh, and it's rarely about the book.  Something which has caused the cycling out of several members I have to add.  We do discuss the book at hand, but I'd say about a quarter to a third of the time spent together is spent discussing the book. 

The rest of the time, it's all about the food.  And our kids.  And our (mostly) old houses.  And the weather.  And schools.  The conversation ranges far and wide.  

I'd given away several titles I'd tucked away as my recommendation over the past year.  The Ninth Wife, The Lace Reader...  Both were books I'd wanted to recommend, but let others do so when they couldn't think of a good book.  So, for my selection this month?  Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book.  It's a favorite of mine -- I know, it's technically YA, but it's got depth and humor enough for me.  

The interesting thing about this little book was as much the different interpretations of its basic plot as it was the book itself.  One of our members took it to be about a child witnessing murder and his 15 or so year process of healing, a perspective I'll admit hadn't occurred to me.  Her life experience with a student who'd witnessed a murder influenced her interpretation.  That's the great thing about a book club.  There are lots of lenses through which we can view our surroundings.  I've got a lovely group of women with which to share the view, and I'm much the better for it, I think.

Now.  About the food.  Because, while it's not a competition, ... well, it kind of is.  Even with myself.  Jules, of the comments, did note that my Darned Good Chocolate cake just wasn't what it usually is... ; )  Yeah, Julie, I didn't slather it with ganache, ya chocolate hound!  It's January, you know,... calorie counting here and the stick of butter in the caramel frosting was hanging over my head!

I give you Banana Cake with Quick Caramel Frosting topped with Salted, Roasted Pecans.  Geeawwd.   Yum.  

 

And merely superlative Darned Good Chocolate Cake.  

The recipes?  From a favorite book, of course... The CakeMix Doctor.  If you don't bake (and as much as I do bake, I don't really bake -- I like a lot of bang for my buck and I find that my scratch baking doesn't always provide that) this is your book.  In fact, it seems, the book club often discusses the merits of the recipes in this book.  While we're eating cake, usually.

Oh, alright... I served spinach dip and vegetables and wine and whatever else, but baby?  It's really all about the cakes.  I have leftovers and hubster isn't in town to polish them off.  I see visitors in my future ; )

Knitting?

Well,it ain't over, as they say... And boy, she's got a long song ahead of her.

 

I've got about 50 more stitches to pick up across the bottom of the sweater.  There are supposed to be 320, but there are more... I did an extra repeat... Now.  350 stitches times a 32 row repeat times 10 repeats.  Approximately 112,000 stitches.  Sob.  You know?  I should never do math.

That's way more than 6 episodes of Middlemarch on streaming Netflix...

Whacha Doin? Eatin' Chocolate....

Shhhh... hear that?  I've been in my house alone for hours.  I know!  The only dishes in the sink are mine!  And those shoes on the floor?  Mine.  And, they haven't moved from where I put them!  I KNOW! 

Dear Son is off to Scout Camp, Daughter is out volunteering, Hubster is working... I KNOW!

I did a little laundry, and some clean up.  I talked on the phone.  Then I knit.  And listened to Emma, another Jane Austen.  BTW, I know that Wuthering Heights isn't Austen.  Now.  I just lumped them all together.  If I was writing some kind of paper for credit I'd have gotten that right...

What did I knit?  Well, that is precisely the subject of this post.  Weeks ago, a customer asked me to teach her how to do mattress stitch so that she could sew an applied edge to an afghan.  She came in and we worked on it.  Turns out to be not exactly mattress stitch as there are different edge stitches at each end and down the sides of the afghan and the applied edging uses garter stitch to but up against the afghan.  Fiddly at best.  So she threw up her hands after 45 minutes and asked me how much I'd charge to put it together for her.  I threw out a huge number thinking that would settle her into learning this skill.  She promptly accepted, left me the pile and walked out.  Turns out she had to knit more of the edging for me to apply, and that took a few weeks, and then after she dropped it off at the shop, I couldn't get it into my bag to take it home, but once I settled down to do it?  It took like an hour and a half.

The afghan is really lovely.  It's a Lion Brand pattern, but I don't have the front page so I don't know the name of it.  It has lovely trees worked out of cables and traveling stitches and rows of something that looks like either thistles or tulips.  It's about 5 1/2 feet by 4 feet, so there is just shy of 20 feet of edging.

And I do mean just shy...

About 5 pattern repeats shy.  So the time I spent on this piece more than doubled while I knit more leaves and applied them -- in all 3 1/2 hours. 

The price I quoted?  $20.00 an hour.  Is it worth it to you?  The application was fiddly, but very easy once I decided on the pattern of stitches to use in seaming.  And I could listen and work.  I think I wish she had learned the skill rather than pay me that much money for something so simple.  And isn't it funny how I'm sitting here thinking that something not 1 person in a thousand could accomplish so neatly isn't worth a measly 20 bucks an hour?  What is that all about?

Ok.  Now that I've talked myself into that, more on what I did with my day.  But no pics as the light is less that great right now.  Filey is getting shoulder seams tonight and a neck treatment.  Then it's on to sleeve island.

Score!

I volunteered to work at the used book fair for Dear Daughter's school today.  I donated like a thousand books to this fair and I swore to myself and hubby that I wouldn't come home with any books.  At all. 

What I didn't know at the time of the swearing was that there might be vintage knitting pamphlets and books.  Such conditions, I believe, render said swearing null and void.  I spent $13.00.

See the Barbara Walker book?  And the Mary Thompson's Knitting book?  It's from 1939.  The Knitting for Young America is a self published book with easy first projects dated 1948.  The author was the managing director of The Handknitting Institute (about which I can find nothing on the Web.)  All are from the library of the O'Fallon Motherhouse for the Sisters of the Most Precious Blood.  Many have the name Sr. Catherine Beckerle written in lovely script on their inside covers.  Sr. Catherine also collected booklets. 

These baby booklets are absolutely chock full of  beautiful, timeless patterns.  The blue one in the bottom right corner is dated 1942, the rest are newer.  There are at least 16 different patterns for soakers in these books, and 4 different patterns  for buntings (I love the idea of a handknitted baby bunting.)    The 1942 book has a pattern for two bathing suits -- knitted in all wool yarn though...  Embiggen the picture and see?  It calls for Fleishers Cassimere, a 100% wool fingering weight yarn.  Nice. 

And this little one has no knitting on, but she seriously doesn't need it, does she?

And this hat?  A must knit.  Really.  I just think it's the cutest thing. 

File this one under "Blog contests, write a caption for this picture."  Too easy?  Really, though, this child is way too old to be cute and nakey on a blankey. 

This set, in one of the older booklets, early '50s I think, is absolutely simple and gorgeous.  I can't wait to make it. 

But Sister Catherine didn't just knit for babies.

There are great patterns for grownups here too.  Love these -- they're from the orange book at the upper left.  I mean seriously, I'd knit any of them tomorrow.  I don't even see where there would need to be too much modernizing in the shaping.   See the cable running up the raglan sleeve?  Love it!

And Sr. Catherine knit the first one for someone...

Husband says I can knit this for him only if I include the pipe and some Brylcreem.  Do they still make that stuff?

Edited to add:  No, I don't think an all wool bathing suit is "nice".  That was sarcasm.  Yes I do really love the yellow cap.  That was not sarcasm.  Darned internets, interfering with my nonverbals...  And did you notice that the two knitting books in the bottom right hand corner of the first picture are the exact books noted in the latest Interweave as books Elizabeth Zimmerman says any intrepid knitter should own.  Well, then.  I'm all set...

Mine Were Nancy Drew

It's Spring Break chez Annie, and we didn't go to some warmer clime or some snow-covered mountain.  We pretty much kicked it around the house with friends.  We went to the Zoo on what turned out to be the one nice-outside day of the week.  I had to work for a few hours two of the days.  Each kid had a little bit of homework, but not much.  Really?  Just relaxing.  Both kids seemed to need a little recharging after a hard, dark winter.  So I let them.  Recharge that is. 

Daughter is fixated on the Jonas Brothers.  For the uninitiated, they are one of the current Disney stable boy bands.  She collects magazine pictures of them and tapes them to various surfaces in her bedroom.  She visited various bookstores and magazine outlets this week and added some to her collection.  She also did some housework to earn more money to buy magazines.  We call her Cinderella. 

But it's Dear Son who had a magical week.  I bet you'll remember your first too. 

See, he's smitten. 

With a series of books that is.   The books are the Alex Rider series by Brit Anthony Horowitz.  They are about a 14 year-old kid who's parents have (of course) been killed and somehow he's ended up an unlikely and relatively uncooperative but super capable way smarter than the adults around him  spy for MI6.  One of our cousins sent Son the books for Christmas and he finally had the time to really attack them this week.  He read the first two over the course of a few months as he was pretty busy with school and basketball.  But I believe he's read 4 of them this week.  And is into book 7 -- the current last of the series -- as of last night.  Yesterday?  A kind of cold and dreary day here?  He read an entire 200 and some odd page book. 

I don't know about you, but that makes me very nostalgic.  I remember working my way through all of the Little House books.  And when I found out that a neighbor had all of the Nancy Drew books and that I could borrow any of them?  I read 'em all one summer.  I remember the sheer joy of practically skimming the books, just to see what would happen, knowing I had several more piled up and waiting.  And the bitter sweet almost regret at picking up the last book and savoring it.  Don't you?  I also read all of the Stallion books by Walter Farley, and some series by Victoria Holt but I can't remember it or find it online.  I know there are more, but I can't think of them.   

What were your love series?  Maybe yours will jog my memory? 

IITCSIRALOBAM

That'll teach me to reconstruct an acronym phonetically. 

Ok, guys.  I've got it right now, so get off my back...IITCSIRALOBAM stands for "I'm in this club so I read at least one book a month", pronounced itsy-rahl-oh-bomb.  Happy? 

ITSARALABAM

    You know, we named this book club of ladies in a around my urban neighborhood about 7 years ago and I can't even remember what the acronym stands for except that the last part is "About a Book a Month".  Sheesh.  We've read nearly a hundred books in the intervening time and members have come and gone.  There are still 4 of us originals and we were all present at last nights meeting.
     We often meet in the home of the person assigning the book and usually on Sunday evenings, but this month we ended up in a nearby Irish pub.  (I had awesome Bread Pudding with Whiskey Butter Sauce -- what's not to like?)  Our theme this year is Books We Should Have Read in School and the book this month was My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok.  Really enjoyed it.  It's from the 70's (DH had read it in HS) and is about a young Hasidic Jew who is an artist -- he just is that and can't help it.  Father doesn't approve.  Coming of age story and very interesting glimpse into devout Judaism.  It's funny, but most of our group is Roman Catholic (heck, most of St. Louis proper is Roman Catholic, but don't hold that against us...)and we seem to gravitate towards books that can be discussed through the lens of religion.  The group bears no particular religiosity, it just informs our views of the world.  Hmmm...  Last night we discussed whether on can "shop" religions -- an offshoot of the conversation about the hierarchy of the Catholic church that contained many derisive references to penises and power, you get it, right?  Those of us raised Catholic don't seem to be able to do this, where our Protestant members could...the Catholics don't seem to be able to cross the divide even though we aren't particularly fervent, just "Catholic".  And raised as such.  Hard to explain, but nearly universal.  Hmmm I say again. 
Anyway, we meet 4-6 weeks and I really enjoy the group of ladies.  As I said, each month  a group member assigns a book (we've arranged ourselves in alphabetical order) and the next month, she hosts the discussion, and so on.  I'll let you know what our next book is when the absent assigning member gets around to letting us know what it is. 

Other Books

    I've also just finished Kite Runner, that book everyone is talking about  that takes place mostly in Afghanistan.  Whew.  Too graphic for me -- the raping and pillaging that has taken that country back to the stone age during our lifetimes!  Yuck. 
    But my favorite recent book has to be the Time Traveler's Wife -- sorry, not so good with authors -- A great read and lovely.  Get out the Kleenex.  My kind of no nonsense mom didn't like it as much as I did.  I'd say it's one of the best books I've read in recent years.  Not to give it away -- it's about a guy whose genetically predisposed to time travel when he's under stress.  You know, just disappear and reappear somewhere in his lifetime naked (because you can't take things with you, not even fillings).  Imagine the ramifications and they are in this book.  Fun. I didn't knit for a few days, just read the book.  Heck I even knit when I read the new Harry Potter, but not this....
    I'll have knitting content when I have done more knitting....