Finished Started Early, Took my Dog, Kate Atkinson’s latest, and liked it very much. The mystery is really in the background, the characters make the book. She ends with my favorite Dickinson poem, Hope. The title is from another of her poems.

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

Read Mark Bilingham’s latest as well, and liked it. From the Dead, 2010. Glad I read most of these before the TV series because my Thorne and TV’s Thorne are not the same. It’s a good mystery.

In the car, listening to Frank Delaney, 20087, Ireland: a novel, a rambling book of stories told by a story teller. It’s good though, and the author is reading it and reading it well. This book is better listened to I think.

I am mostly finished and very much liking Ryan Knighton’s latest book, C’mon Papa: Dispatches from a Dad in the Dark, 2010. He writes well, about becoming a new father as a blind person. It’s a page turner – a good continuation of Cockyed. I hope he keeps writing.