I must be on a nostalgia kick again because I've been looking up books from my past. Mostly picture books until now, but then I remembered how much I enjoyed The Boxcar Children, by Gertrude Chandler Warner. :-) Oddly enough, this was the only one of her books I read ... given my age, it probably had something to do with the lack of horses! Still a good read, even after all these years. And, it fits with a repeat trail I find myself on ... trains. ;-)

More from times past here: Pugetopolis: a Mossback Takes on Growth Addicts, Weather Wimps, and the Myth of Seattle Nice, by Knute Berger. I found the essays good then, and they still are now, if a bit dated. Some of the same issues are still with us: cruise ships are even bigger, public transportation (light rail) is still a concern, and news/weather is still made to sound worse than it is. And, my favorite is still the one about a latte tax. :-)

This past weekend I finished a Masie Dobbs book by Jacqueline Winspear, and watched The King's Speech again. Actually, the first inspired the second as In This Grave Hour takes place right around the time of the film. (The title comes from one of the speeches made by the king). Once again London is facing a war: sandbags reappear, citizens are carrying gas masks again, and the common thought is "we know what's coming ... we've been through this before". A good mystery here (a most interesting connection between the bodies that are found) but an overall sense of sadness, too. Nice job on the part of the author, I thought.

Reading Hermit With Dog