Beware the Tiger

The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival by John Vaillant

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I really enjoyed reading this book. I will say that some of the descriptions of the victims were hard to read, but overall I was impressed with how restrained Vaillant was in these passages. It would have been easy to over-describe, but he maintained respect for the deceased. It was a little hard to follow the book as it skipped back and forth in time and around in geography. I know that some readers cannot stand books that do that and they will not like that in this book. This technique doesn't really bother me, but it was sort of distracting. Given the real paucity of data on the actual events, the need to fill out the book with the background was real and interspersing the background with the events kept me reading through all of the data. I'm sure I retained more of the background than I would have if there would have been an extensive background separate from the event descriptions. The background research was very thorough and made the book much more than a voyeuristic journey of gore. I knew that tigers were endangered and that man was the primary reason for that, but it was very interesting to see just how our economic journey impacts the tigers. All in all, a very worthwhile read!



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Curl Up With a Book Sunday

1984 by George Orwell

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I read this one for the first time years ago and I remember being fascinated by the idea of The Party and its stranglehold on its members and utter control of all in Oceania. This time around I read it because it was is the January book for my book club. Either the book isn't holding up or I have changed. I kept waiting for it to get to the point and was frustrated with Winston and Julia's affair and their blind trust in certain persons who all proved to be completely untrustworthy.

There are books that I enjoy re-reading, but this wasn't one of them. Perhaps it is because too much of the book has come to pass. My every keystroke can be monitored at work and there is no privacy online. There also seem to be those who would whip us into the mindless frenzy that The Party loved to create. Then again, I believe that one of Orwell's aims with 1984 was to make us uncomfortable with the parallel between his fictional world and the one we see out our windows. In that, this book still succeeds.



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Happy 2011!

New year, new times. Comments are back on. Play nice.

Endings, Beginnings, and a Pattern!

To enable my obsession with reading, I ended 2010 with a new toy. I am now the proud owner of a Nookcolor. I love it! Young Man and I both scored them for the holidays. Young Man picked out a nice book-style cover from B&N for his. I haven't decided whether I want one of the heavenly tooled leather covers from Oberon or an easel-style for hands-free reading. Until I decide, I figured that my new toy needed a cover, so the Nook Cozy was born:

Nook Cozy

Yarn: Any worsted-weight will do. Mine is knit is a Malabrigo kettle-dyed worsted that is just lovely and soft, but way too busy for most projects.

Needles: US 8 (5mm) - I used double-pointed needles, but a 16in circular would work too.

Pattern:

Using Judy's Magic Cast-On (or your favorite for toe-up socks) cast on 52 stitches and join for working in the round.

Body:

Rnd 1-5: k7, p2, k8, p2, knit to end of round

Rnd 6: k7, p2, cable cross left over 8 stitches (put 4 stitches on cable needle, hold in front, k4, k4 from cable needle), p2, knit to end of round

Rnd 7-8: k7, p2, k8, p2, knit to end of round

Repeat rows 1-8 six times more (seven cable crosses in total).

Top:

Rnd 1: p9, p2tog four times (four stitches decreased), p9, knit to end of round

Rnd 2: knit

Rnd 3: bind off 22 stitches in purl, p3, k20, p3

Flap:

At this point you will be working back and forth to complete the flap.

Row 1: purl

Row 2: p3, k20, p3

Repeat rows 1 and 2 until flap is approximately 1 1/2 inches long (I did five more repeats), repeat row 1 one more time.

Buttonhole rows:

Row 1: p3, k9, bind off 2 stitches, k9, p3

Row 2: p12, cast on 2 stitches, p12

Garter stitch edge:

Purl 2 rows and bind off in purl.

Finishing:

Weave in ends and add a decorative button over the top cable cross.

Credits: I used parts from both of these eReader sleeve patterns: Kindle Pocket and Cabled Kindle Sleeve.

Witchy Hunts

The Crucible by Arthur Miller

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This was a much quicker read than my days reading would indicate. Life has certainly kept me away from books! This one was very good. While it is a stylized version of the Salem witch trials, it was also a review of the McCarthy-era Communist witch hunts. There were so many parallels that I can see that the topic was just too good for Miller to pass up. There are also some parallels to current events of today that many would do well to note. It is far too easy to take a little heresay and comments made from those with axes to grind and condemn innocents.



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