Summer reading, 2016

Oh dear, summer is almost over, it seems. Anyway, I got three good books read this summer, to wit:

• Tod in Breslau (Death in Breslau, Śmierć w Breslau) by Marek Krajewski
  Since we spent a weekend visiting the European Culture Capital during the summer break, I wanted to read this thriller that takes place in Breslau in the 1930s. We had a lovely weekend in Breslau, but I was unable to place much of anything except the cathedral in this thriller, as the translator translated all the street and place names. Anyway, you got a good feeling about how the place slipped into Nazism in the 30s. At that time, Breslau was a German city with many Polish inhabitants. This story of intrigue on top of intrigue on top of lies and murders and more lies will keep your head spinning as it finally loops back to start where it began.
  
• Eleanor Rigbyby Douglas Coupland
  I love Doug Coupland! So why has this book, published 12 years ago, been sitting unread in one of my piles??? No idea, but this is a typical Coupland, trudging along at a slow and steady pace until it takes a wacky, zany leap, then continues plodding, while asking you to suspend your disbelief as it romps towards the abrupt ending, leaving you screaming to know how the story continues. Pure joy, makes you forget there were other things you were planning on doing during vacation as you read just one more page.
  
• Norwegian by Night by Derek B. Miller
  WiseMan picked this up last year in Reykjavik. It was written in English, translated into Norwegian and first published in Norway. Then some adjustments were made and it was published in English in 2013. There are a lot of stereotypes inhabiting these pages (Americans, Norwegians, Jewish Americans, Serbs, Albanians, Marines, snipers, Norwegian cops, Swedes, Vietnamese, drug dealers, did I miss anyone?) and some of the characters are not well developed. The main character, an elderly ex-Marine Jewish-American retired watchmaker just moved to Oslo. We keep shifting times, drifting back to remembrances and then onward to current happenings, and the end comes rather in a rush leaving me a bit concerned as I am not sure exactly what happened to everyone. But it was a good read, and even if the names of the places around Oslo were mostly in English, at least the parts of town were left in Norwegian so I had a vague notion of where they were. 

Maybe I can get another one in the last few days, it's supposed to rain.....

Summer readings

It seems that my usual blogging time has been taken up with WiseGrandkid, which is fine by me. She's 15 months old now, and I've been able to babysit a few times. She misses her mother then terribly, but when we girls go shopping together, she quiets down. So shopping we go, I've managed to finally get myself some new shoes and stocked up on drug store items. It's amazing how young they are able to identify brands. There is this sugary yoghurt called Fruchtzwerge that comes in colorful little pots. While grocery shopping this week she pointed to them in the dairy section, then looked at me with those eyes I know only too well from WiseKid, and so Grandma puts a six-pack in the grocery cart. And WiseGrandkid actually ate one when we got home.

Over the summer I did get some reading done, so instead of long reviews, here's the list with a brief description:

• Kazuo Ishiguro: The Remains of the Day
  This book won the Booker Prize in 1989 (which only shows how long it takes me to get around to reading things). It is a description of the life of an English butler, Stevens, who spends his life serving others. In 1956 he finally takes a holiday, and we are treated to descriptions of the English countryside as well as peeping into his past and all that he has seen, but never spoken of. He has never had time for himself, being in service 24/7 at Darlington Hall. I suppose I should take heed of this and spend more time doing things for myself and not end up like Stevens, only working for others.
• Jörg Maurer: Felsenfest: AlpenkrimiI usually prefer Scandinavian Krimis, crime thrillers. But Jörg Maurer is really good, he has such whimsical characters and such fast-paced, crazy stories that take place in the Alps that just might be true. A great summer read.
• Robert M. Sonntag: Die Scanner
  This is a story for young people, although I'm afraid teenagers today don't read, so we'll have to wait for it to be available on YouTube. It's about a society not too far in the future in which there are no books any longer. They have all been scanned and the paper burned. There are people who comb the city, looking for books that have been left over, in order to scan them in. And of course there are the hold-outs who hoards books and hide them and refuse to turn them over to the scanners. Then one day, there is a "computer problem", and all the books of the past are gone. No matter, who reads books anymore, anyway? It is a plausible dystopia, but I'm afraid that teenagers don't understand the value of keeping "old stuff" around.

That's it for now, at least I can now put these books into my bookshelves. And no, I'm not scanning them in. I like to have words printed on paper, they don't change or disappear.

Schweineöde

My university moved some departments (mine included) to a former industrial area in Berlin, Schöneweide (English: beautiful field), five years ago. This part of town is often called "Schweineöde" (English: pig's wasteland) by the locals. Located on the Spree, it was an area with heavy industrialization that broke down during the German Democratic Republic times and for decades was known for unemployment, abandoned buildings, and Neonazis. The latter had their headquarters here, a clothing store and some pubs, but that is now changing. One of the pubs has finally lost the last court suit brought by the owner and is being forced to move.

In 2004 Carsten Otte published a book called "Schweineöde" with Eichborn (reviews in German at Cicero and Perlentaucher). The book is about Raimund Kuballa, bored millionaire from the West who rents a room in Schöneweide and experiences, as Otte writes, "Einsamkeit, Haß, Zuneigung, Liebe, Ablehnung, Gewalt, Erniedrigung, Ohnmacht und Macht" (loneliness, hate, affection, love, rejection, violence, humilation, impotence and power) during his years of living in a small apartment in the Rathenaustraße. Most particularly, he becomes so fascinated with the history of the former Eastern German secret police Stasi, that he himself turns to information gathering, denunciation, even framing his neighbor and rival for the love of Jana in order to get him jailed.

Oberschöneweide
CC-BY-NC-SA, WiseWoman

I was at the beginning fascinated to read about this part of town, and it was interesting to see how Kuballa was drawn into his obsession with the Stasi. But the book soon got bogged down and Otte didn't really have any idea how to end the book. But for a first novel I suppose that is often the case. I often wondered while reading the book if Otte himself had lived in this apartment and was describing his neighbors.

In any case, this part of town is slowly pulling itself out of the muck. Since 7000 students and teachers trek out to the university every weekday, espresso bars and cafes have sprung up, and the art scene is rapidly developing. The rents are still cheap here and a walk along the Spree is a great way to spend a sunny afternoon.

The Vanished Man

I love Jeffery Deaver's Lincoln Rhyme series, as I may have mentioned before (here - and here - and here - and here). I picked up "The Vanished Man" at the second hand shop for 5 SEK (about 60 Euro cents), and dug in. "The expert magician seeks to deceive the mind, rather than the eye." And oh my, what a lot of magic and deception and just a general good story. Was up until 3 am in order to finish it off, and it is full of surprises, up to the very end!

Now if I could just sort out how to be a quick-change artist, I could shave lots of time off my getting ready for work in the morning! This guy can change AND put on makeup in 10 seconds? Boah. And I don't even need make up.

Putin's Mailbox and Spies

We found a little notice in the local paper that a colleague of WiseMans, Aris Fioretos, would be discussing the books of Marcel Beyer together with the author at the city library in Malmö this evening.  Since it was Bokrea day, the day the books of the 2011 season are remandered in Sweden and the book stores open at 7am and are packed with people buying books like there is no tomorrow, and we had to be right in there with everyone, we drove down to civilization for the day.

The library in Malmö is magnificent, and they had the open space with about a four-story atrium set up with a stage and lots of chairs. The evening was held in three languages: There was an introduction in Swedish, then the discussion in English. Beyer read a bit from one of his books in German, and a Swedish actor read from two books in Swedish.

His books appear to have a lot to do with identity, and with German politics. He himself, born in the West, now resides in Dresden and would not go back to live in the West. When questioned by a listener he explained, as we also have experienced, that for many people in the western part of Germany, living in the former East Germany is tantamount to living in the Congo. People look at you, wild-eyed, when you say you live there. They wonder if you can get lattes there, and food, and whether the heating works. Yes, to all.

Putins Briefkasten (Putin's Mailbox)  is about a search for the house in which Putin lived when he was a Russian secret agent living in Dresden. Spione: Roman (Spies) is about four children finding a photo album with pictures of their grandfather in a Nazi uniform and start to dig into their grandparents history. Discussing this last book, Fioretos pointed out that we tend to find our parents boring, because we know everything about them (we think) - we've lived with them all our lives. But our grandparents - they are exciting, and our parents know nothing much about them, because they are their parents.

I had a nice chat with Beyer afterwards, he's quite an insightful guy, very sensitive to the environment he is observing. I'll have to get the books back in Germany. No sense buying a nice German book in the Swedish translation, even if the Swedish publisher did spring for potato chips, German sausages, and alcohol-free German beer.

(Spies is also available as a used book in English.)

The Virgin Suicides

I was sure that I had blogged about the book by Jeffery Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides, after I read it, especially since this small town story reminded me of so many tiny, unpleasant things about growing up in the US. 

The film, directed by Sofia Coppola in 1999, was on TV this evening. Set in the 70s in an affluent neighborhood, a religious family with five girls tries to keep a tight reign on them. The girls have other ideas. 

For me, having attended high school in the early 70s, there are sooooo many things in the film that trigger memories long forgotten. Eighth grade homecoming party. The football jocks (although the quarterbacks were never that thin or cute). The white dress with pastel flowers on it my Mom made for some dance - and I sat at a table all evening, vowing never to subject myself to a school dance again. And I didn't. Didn't go to the prom.

There is no happy end to this story. But the book is a good read and the movie wasn't bad. 

The Forty Rules of Love

A good friend from Jordan gave me this book when she was visiting earlier this year. This strange tale by Elif Shafak, "The Forty Rules of Love" , weaves two stories together. One, taking place in the 1200s, is about a Persian poet, Rumi and his encounter with a whirling dervish, Shams. Shams is a Sufi and he spends much time with Rumi, discussing the Forty Rules of Love with him.

The second story is about Ella and Aziz in 2009, with Ella (a Jewish-American housewife) struggling in an unhappy marriage. She is getting back to work as a literary reviewer and is given Aziz' book to review. The book touches her deeply, and she contacts Aziz, a Scotsman who has himself become a Sufi.

It was an interesting introduction to a very foreign, Muslim world for me, and a quick read. I was not able to relate to many of the "Rules of Love" set out, but the fortieth one does indeed resound, so I will quote it here:

A life without love is of no account. Don't ask yourself what kind of love you should seek, spiritual or material, divine or mundane, Eastern or Western ... Divisions only lead to more divisions. Love has no labels, no definitions. It is what it is, pure and simple. Love is the water of life. And a lover is a soul of fire! The universe turns differently when fire loves water."

Roadside Crosses

The back cover of Roadside Crosses starts with:
"On the Internet, you can never be sure who is listening. Anyone can discover your secrets, you deepest fears."

Okay, another scary-internet mystery. Politicians suffer a lot from Scary Internet Syndrome (have a read at Lauren Weinstein's Why governments are afraid of social media while you are at it). But it's a Jeffery Deaver story, so I dive it.

The stuff you would expect: minority people doing great jobs, incompetent bosses, an irritating blogger, drinking teenagers, game-playing teenagers, plots, lots of people dying before the mystery gets itself solved. The minute the heroine, Deaver, asks for the IP addresses I'm sure the thing is doomed, but the blogger refuses to give them up (at first). The plots thickens and twists and turns to an unexpected end.

It is very hard to address a technical topic such as social media without boring half the readers - either the ones who know about and use social media, or the ones who have no interest in them at all. They tried cross-media, putting up a "real" blog: The Chilton Report. Okay, it was built with NetObjects Fusion 11, but nothing is linked, you have to have the links in the book in order to see the pages. I did spend most of yesterday just sitting there, reading, however. A good vacation read, especially when it rains most every day...

The Latest Novels

Just because I haven't blogged about them doesn't mean that I haven't been reading! I've just finished the third book that needs blogged about, so here's my take on them:

• Daniel Suarez, Freedom^TM. I *loved* Daemon, so I was very eager to get started on the sequel. The Daemon now has control of pretty much all of the world, but it turns out, Pete isn't dead, that was part of an elaborate plot by the Daemon. Multinational companies have taken over the world, and it gets nasty. Really nasty and bloody. Violence to the point that I actually considered putting the book aside. I slogged through to "End Game", but it wasn't very satisfying. The best thing about it was the idea of the thread that the in-people from the Darknet can see in their fancy glasses. Not much else I liked, though.
• Next up is Jeffery Deaver with The Burning Wire. I love his fast-paced writing, and I really like his Lincoln Rhyme character. Even though he is in a wheelchair and paralyzed from the neck down, he's a great forensics investigator. And the method of killing people in this book is quite novel, to say the least. This is so much of a must read that I've already given a copy to a friend. But psst, don't tell WiseMan how it turns out, he hasn't read it yet.
• Last night I finished Kirstin Warschau's Fördewasser, a German Krimi set in Kiel. It was given to us by a friend from Kiel (we lived there for 15 years). Inspector Olga Island (what a horrible name, every time the author refers to her by just her last name I first thought of Iceland, then of and English Island, and finally of the inspector. The story could have been original, but the ending is quite puzzling with a Chinese student popping up and all sorts of other surprises. Most of the figures are very flat, and there are lots of questions that remain unanswered. Why can her artist friend afford to spend days in the Hotel Astor? How on earth can she really get him into an archive on a Saturday and have him do all that research including driving to and from Hamburg in just a few hours? What happened to the diabetic cop? She gives heaps and heaps of local color, naming all the streets they drive down. She describes the forensics department at the hospital in vivid detail, and since I've actually worked there, the description is quite exact. But it doesn't really help the story much. And if people don't really understand the geography, they get confused. What happened on the East Side (Ostufer)? Where the hell is Westensee and is that close to Diedrichsdorf? Only if you know Kiel is this maybe worth reading.

Now, what next? Shall I get started on Jonathan Franzen?

The System

Scary. I just finished a German thriller, Das System, by Karl Olsberg. Olsberg is a pseudonym for an author and entrepreneur with a doctorate in artificial intelligence.

The book is about computer suddenly misbehaving - and it's not just the operating systems, it's a creature that consists only of code. Intelligent code.

The story is well-written, pulls you inward and onwards, and is correct in the computing aspects, except for the part of there really being such an "intelligent" program, which I very much doubt. But if there ever is, this book shows why we don't want to have such a program. Brrrr.

A great read, but no link to Amazon. I have an issue with them, and have managed my entire Christmas shopping elsewhere.

The Sea Lady

I used the hour given to us this morning upon turning the clocks back to finish off Margret Drabble's The Sea Lady. It is a rather odd tale of academics and aging.

Two academics in their 60s are traveling to the (presumably, I can't find it on Wikipedia) northern coastal town of Ornemouth to receive honorary doctorates at the new university there, which is desperately trying to pretend that it is an old English university.  Humphrey, the marine biologist, and Ailsa (apparently named after the Scottish Ailsa Craig), the gender studies star, had spent a summer together as children here together with her brother and a friend.

Drabble switches perspectives from Ailsa to Humphrey to an irritatingly omniscient Public Orator, and we follow their respective trains of thought as they review their academic and personal lives - and tragedies - on the trip northward. Ailsa and Humphrey had been lovers and briefly married at one time.

The book was hard to follow as my usual read-a-few-pages-before-bed companion, but the last 70 pages or so - read this morning - did finally become fascinating, even if the ending I was envisioning did not present itself. The very few chapter divisions and typographical breaks when skipping over time make it hard to pick up the thread again. I suppose Drabble wants to draw us into the stream of consciousness and make us participate in the thought processes of the main characters. But I don't read books at one sitting anymore (okay, with the exception of Stieg Larsson during a summer's read-a-thon).

I long, somehow, upon finishing reading, to head right for the sea.

1222 över havet

And another book report! This time from Norway, read in the Swedish translation, although I have read a book of hers in Norwegian, it just takes longer.

Anne Holt: 1222 över havet (Norwegian title: 1222). 2007

Translated by the master thriller writer herself, Maj Sjöwall, she must be about 70. Yes, indeed, just checked the Wikipedia (and got mad that the highlights of the article are her relationship with Per Wahlöö and that she is a Marxist....).

Anyway. Anne Holt, trained as a lawyer, briefly minister of justice in Norway, now a journalist and thriller writer, has written another great one!

I was just getting a newspaper when I saw this on the shelf. I like Anne Holt, the last one I read, Presidentens Valg, was really great. So I got it, and mentioned it to a friend the next day, who writes book reviews on thrillers for a living. She gagged, saying that the books were soooo boring, they made her want to vomit. Harumpf. So it goes on the top of the pile.

Hanne Wilhelmsen, former cop, is now confined to a wheelchair after being shot in the back during a previous thriller. She's on her way by train to Bergen in winter, when the train derails. And since Murphy was an optimist, it's at the worst possible place - the highest point of the journey, 1222 meters above sea level, 40 km from the highway on skis, if one was able to ski. The only other way to get here, other than train, is by helicopter, and they don't fly in weather like this.

People fly about, get hurt, and are pulled out of the wreck and taken to the local hotel, as there is a horrible storm brewing. It doesn't take long for a murder to happen, and since all communication with the outside world is cut off, it is up to Hanne to overcome her aversion to police work and letting herself be helped up and down stairs (doesn't Norway have accessibility laws?) and starts to figure out who-dunnit.

It's rather Miss Marple-like, and really quite charming with all sorts of diversions thrown in. Just as it was about to be solved, I put it down and went out to hose down the house. I deliberated who the murderer might be. I chose two people, and at least one of them was right, and part of the reason I chose was right as well.

It was another page turner, I had to put off making dinner until I was finished with it. The chapters are introduced with the Beaufort scale, the wind picking up as the book heads for the solution. So just ignore the gagging - it's coming out in English in December, just the thing for a winter's read in front of the fireplace.

Voices

"A voice like an angel" - and here he is, dead as a doornail, wearing a Santa Claus suit in a Reyjkavik hote.

Arnaldur Indriđason: Engelsstimme. 2002. (Icelandic title: Röddin, English title: Voices)

Another Erlendur thriller, but it's rather boring. Or maybe it's me watching these Beck films while reading this. Police officers my age and a bit older are overweight, noticing their age, missing female companionship, and have cases to solve.
I pretty much had to force myself to read a chapter each night. The plot is a bit thin, although it does lurch nicely back and forth. Maybe the melancholy just got to me too much. Anyway, I finished it, check, on to the next!

Die Hirnkönigin

Book report time!

I have this large, large pile of books that I have been planning on reading for years. I am trying to work my way through them, and report on each one, mostly to remind myself which ones I have already read.

Thea Dorn: Die Hirnkönigin, 2001

(Okay, so it's been on the pile for a long time).  Brrrrr. Scary. Constructed like a Greek tragedy, filled with allusions to what I assume are famous Greek stuff (like Homer and so on). Bloody. Bizarre. Berlin.

It was a quick read, couldn't put it down, and it will give you nightmares for days. What a shame it's not in English yet.

The College Fear Factor

Just read Rebecca D. Cox's "The College Fear Factor - how students and professors misunderstand one another". The book focuses on junior college students and writing courses, but much of what she says is definitely applicable to other schools and programs.

1. Students are scared. Scared not to understand, scared not to be able to do the work. Will do anything that seems to work, without understanding what it is that they are doing.
2. Students have strange expectations - the person standing at the front is supposed to be an authority spouting truth and beauty. They are confused when we don't tell them what the "right" answer is. They don't want to hear the "opinions" of others, they want to know what answer to check on a test.
   
3. Critical thinking is something not taught in high schools, especially in the teach-to-the-test schools.
4. Teachers who use non-standard ways of teaching are considered to be "bad" teachers.
5. They tend to be there for the credits, not for learning. And in the US, they want their money's worth.
   
6. Universities hire professors on the basis of their research, then expect them to be teachers without giving them didaktical courses.

There are no easy answers, but it seems to me that we really need to take the first-year students and make things clear to them: what they can expect of us, what we expect of them. Studying is work - work they have to do, work we cannot do for them. But we need to be very detailed and clear on our assignments.

Book Review: Pragmatic Thinking and Learning

Andy Hunt, Pragmatic Thinking & Learning - Refactor Your Wetware. The Pragmatic Bookshelf: Raleigh, NC. 2008

Wow - a funny self-help book for programmers that is properly footnoted and a good read! And it makes a lot of sense, too.

Hunt begins with a discussion of the stages of knowledge in the Dreyfus model: beginner, advanced beginner, competent, proficient, and expert. These different stages are important, because people at different levels learn differently and need different tools to be effective.

In particular, experts are not always good teachers, because they don't always know how or why they make specific decisions - they just do, and they are right. Beginners and advanced beginners have not learned how to see yet - they take in all the possible options and are confused. They long for a rule book: if the situation is thus and such, do this. And they need quick successes.

Experts, however, can react to unforseen situations. This is why the so-called expert systems aren't really experts. They lay down rules for everything, but as soon as the rules are defined for one level, you have to do the next level down, sort of an infinite regression. And the rules do not make good use of context, which is vital for experts.

Hunt goes on to discuss research about the L-mode and the R-mode of your brain, linear and rich mode. Yes, these are approximately the left and the right side of your brain. The L-mode does the logical reasoning and R-mode takes in the whole picture. L-modes focuses on what to do next, R-mode sees relationships, but unfortunately is not really verbal.

The key is getting these two parts of your brain put together. Many agile methods are quite good at appealing to both parts of the brain, that's why they work so well - but not for beginners! I think this is very important for teachers to understand, that we have to teach beginners differently from those who have some competence in programming already.

Hunt has a wealth of suggestions for how to use your "wetware" effectively. Some are kind of bizarre, but maybe worth a try. I went out and got a little moleskin notebook for jotting down random thoughts. It's worth a try, and I've always wanted a reason to have one of those things anyway.

A great book that needs to be read by at least all who teach computing.

Millenium: Volumes 2 and 3

Back in the Real World! I have had my nose in a book for the past 3 weeks or so - I have now finished all three books in the Millenium trilogy of Stieg Larsson. (My blog entry about book 1)

In Swedish! That is over 2100 pages of text that is absolutely riveting. WiseMan read them before me, and he spent days on his lawn chair not doing anything but read. The last two or three days (weeks?) I've been the same way. WiseMan made supper this evening (and did a great job making chicken breasts stuffed with spinach and feta) because I just plain had to finish that last book.

The hacking described is completely okay, except for the Internet connection via mobile telephone in the hospital. Not only do they frown on telephones in hospitals (even hidden ones), in 2004 there were no flat rates for pre-paids in Sweden (there are now, though) and you have to enter a passnumber to connect via Bluetooth.

But the rest is all doable. I suppose that is why the governments are so scared of hackers and want to ban them. They need to read this book and understand how - and why - people hack.

You have to read volume 2 and 3 back to back, number 3 starts exactly where 2 leaves off. And oh, my, don't even start these if you have other work to do! I had a whole pile I was planning to do on vacation, and instead I read these ;)

Men who Hate Women

Finished! I've just spent the last few days (noticeable by the dearth of blogs/tweets/moves on Scrabble) finishing reading Stieg Larsson's "Men who Hate Women" (Swedish: Man Som Hatar Kvinnor, German: Verblendung, published in English as The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo). It's a 600 page monster, and I read it in Swedish. Had to look up a few words in the dictionary, but otherwise: it was such a good read that I just kept going.

WiseMan had been curious to know if the "computer stuff" was correct. Not only is it correct, now I know what Schäuble (German minister of the interior responsible for pushing "the federal trojan virus" through parliament. Stop laughing. He means it. Really.) was reading, or what his advisors were reading. Yes, it is theoretically possible to do what Lisbeth did. But not in general.

Yesterday evening, WiseMan sat on the lawn in his chair finishing up book 3, I sat on the lawn in my chair finishing up book 1. Now we can go see the film, which just opened in Sweden and has gotten good reviews.

Larsson died rather young in 2004, so there will be no more books like this forthcoming. It is such a shame. On to book 2!

The Enchantment of Lily Dahl

Next on the pile of summer reading books is Siri Hustvedt, The Enchantment of Lily Dahl. It's the story of 19-year-old Lily who lives in a small town in Minnesota. She's graduated from high school, loves the theater and Marylin Monroe, and works in a café on the early bird shift, waiting for life to happen.

A thirtysomething from New York comes to town, and incites a lot of gossip and a lot of interest on the part of Lily. There are also some mighty strange goings on in town, lots of dark secrets and hidden loves and gossip, gossip, gossip.

It was quickly read, enjoyable, and discusses in detail Skakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream" (do I see some parallels here?) - which the local, small town summer opera group will be putting on in 1o days. I must go see their version!

The Bone Collector

Now I understand why WiseMan has rather disappeared from society while reading a Jeffery Deaver mystery story. He insisted that I start from the top, so I just bunged "The Bone Collector" into the pile for summer reading.

Brrrrrrrrr. And wonderful. I just love the logic used to lurch on to the next step. Can't really say anything here, as that would ruin your enjoyment of the book. Don't see the movie - apparently they trashed the book to make it "better" in Hollywood manner. I fixed up the Wikipedia entry on Lincoln Rhyme, and then wished I had brought all the others with me. Oh well, there are quite a number of other ones in the pile. But I really could not do much else until I had the book finished, about 2 am last night :)