My Recent Trip and Book Purchases

The Kids Together Again

I went back to Ontario last week to attend my nephew's wedding, visit with Jennifer (my daughter) and then head up to North Bay to see my Dad and sister, Chris. It was nice that all the kids, managed to get together and we all were in North Bay at the same time.



John, Rick and I at Patrick's wedding (sitting on the chair that tore my pants)

It was nice to spend time with all of them; there were a few chuckles, well, quite a few actually. I think my Dad enjoyed having us all together.

The boys with Dad

It was especially nice to spend some time with Jennifer and Martin. The only bad thing about the trip was that Jo couldn't accompany me; as she was laid up with a sore back. Next time!

With Jennifer and Martin at the wedding.

Of course, to the chagrin of my aching bookshelves, I did manage to find an our or so to visit The Book Bazaar in Ottawa and Allison the Bookman in North Bay and find a couple of new books to flesh out my lists. So let's see, what did I find?

The Book Bazaar, Ottawa, Ontario

1. Stettin Station by David Downing (3rd John Russell book). An excellent WWII spy thriller series. At least the first book was excellent, one of my favourites of this year.

2. La Bête Humaine by Emile Zola (1890). A classic selection. I had enjoyed The Ladies' Paradise by Zola very much and when I saw this, thought I should give another of his books a try.

3. Sharpe's Honour by Bernard Cornwell - The continuing adventures of Richard Sharpe as he battles Napoleon's armies and my continuing search for the complete set of books in the series.

4. A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute - One of my favourite authors and my sis-in-law, Sue, read this recently and highly recommended it to me.

5. Industrial Magic by Kelley Armstrong (Women of the Otherworld, #4). I enjoyed the first book, Bitten, very much and also the TV series based on Bitten. I want to try more in this series.

6. Last Laugh, Mr. Moto by John P. Marquand - I do enjoy these pulp fiction novels; I've read 2 in this series so far and I was pleasantly surprised to find this excellent copy of another in the Mr. Moto (Japanese spy extraordinaire) series.

Allison the Bookman, North Bay, Ontario

1. China Lake by Meg Gardiner (Evan Delaney #1) - Meg Gardiner is one of those authors that somebody recommended to me and I've been keeping an eye out for her books of late. Luckily I've found a few in the past couple of months. Now to start reading them. :)

2. Last Bus to Woodstock by Colin Dexter (Inspector Morse #1) - Jo introduced me to the joy of the various TV series based on these books; Morse, Lewis and Endeavour. It's time I started reading the Morse books.

3. The Crossword Murder by Nero Blanc - This is another mystery series I've been hunting for as the premise sounded interesting. It's been difficult to find any books, but luckily Allison's had one in the series.

4. The Assassins by Joyce Carol Oates - I've never read anything by Oates before so I bought this with some trepidation.  But I will have much time on my hands in the near future to give her a try. *fingers crossed*

5. Dance Hall of the Dead by Tony Hillerman - I read the first book in this series, The Blessing Way, just this past month and enjoyed it very much; it was nicely different from my other mystery series, featuring the Navajo police, Joe Leaphorn and introducing their culture. This is book #2.

6. The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern by Lilian Jackson Braun - I like a cozy mystery and I'm currently reading and enjoying the 1st book in this series. This is #2 in the Qwilleran and Koko mystery series.

So there you have it, a nice trip back to visit family and a successful visit to a couple of different book stores.  And loving being back home with Jo and our puppies.