A while ago I had to take Kidgrouch and a friend to some social event at night and then wait around for the girls to tell me they wanted to go home. I don't know why I ever agree to such things because I always end up bored and angry over wasted time that could have been spent more productively. I mean, I glad that they have a good time, and I AM willing to fulfill my parental role, but sometimes I just want to be selfish and say "NO, I DON'T want to do it!" Since no one here really knows me, except for a couple of brief meetings, I may come off as being pretty rude or harsh, but those close to me know me for what I am: a softy at heart.

So after fuming a few minutes I decided to "redeem the time" (please forgive me ) by going to a nearby Barnes and Noble to browse around as a calming device. I LOVE book stores, I love the smell of the printed page, the feel of the pages riffling past my fingers, the idea of another world hiding between the covers, I even love the taste of the older books, the smell of the shellac used as a preservative, the mustiness of yellowed pages...Oh, I could go on and on! So what if people think that it's weird...I don't care!

Anyway, as is usually the case, titles, authors and subjects jump out at me, begging for a purchase, or at least the memory to check the local library for a rental, and, as is also usually the case, I knew that I would be lucky to remember just one title.

But wait!!! I'd forgotten that I have a cell phone with a CAMERA! That's it! I'll take pictures of the books so that I WILL remember! Oh happy day!
So below you'll find a few of the books that caught my interest, and just maybe a little insight into my mind by analyzing my choices.

The cover notes on this book explained that the author is an independent minded woman who is not constrained by gender differences so, while visiting in Egypt, she decided to travel down the Nile River in a small skiff, ALONE! No man to be a chaperon, as the local customs and imams required. The book chronicles her experiences and observations while meeting local inhabitants along the way. Why did this interest me? I dunno!

I don't recall ever hearing any music by the group Korn, but I HAVE heard about this singer's conversion to Christianity, If anything sealed the deal for me it was his picture on the cover. A Prime example of the neo-pagan in modern society.

THIS one just made me laugh! How in the WORLD could a woman navigate a male world without raising some suspicions..at least one involving being gay! The author looks feminine, even in her picture on the cover as a man. Would I read it? Sure, why NOT?

The name"Newt Gingrich" may scare some people off, but remember, before he was in government he was an historian of note. And don't let the topic of history scare you either. Along with his coauthor, Gingrich is a top flight story teller with a great imagination as well. The authors' premise for the book is "What IF...", what if the Japanese attack was much MORE devastating than it was, how would THAT affect the war? This book is only part one of a new series for the authors, and since I enjoyed their previous Civil War trilogy, I will most certainly read this one. HEY COLONEL! You out there? Whataya think?

Ranger Anna Pigeon, Nevada Barr's series heroine (High Country, Flashback), meets her match in this engrossing new thriller set in Rocky Mountain National Park. Heath Jarrod is a climber now confined to a wheelchair after an accident that left her crippled, angry and depressed: "For a few months after the fall, she'd played Christopher Reeve, pretending to be as optimistic, as cheerful, but she was a lousy actor and ... she'd rung down the curtain. The first of many curtains." But there's a second act in her future that begins when two terrified, half-naked little girls stumble out of the woods and into Heath's "handicamp"--they've been missing for weeks, but are too traumatized to tell Heath and then Anna where they've been, or what happened to the third girl who disappeared with them. Beth, the younger, wins Heath's heart; with Anna, she pursues an investigation that leads to a bizarre, quasi-religious cult that's set up its headquarters just outside the park's boundaries, and the youth group leader who'd taken the girls into the wilderness and returned without them. Is Robert Proffit the gentle, spiritual man Anna's seasonal law enforcement agent Rita Perry thinks he is, or a twisted rapist and probable killer whose prayers for the innocent girls in his charge mask his evil nature?

Jane? This one's for YOU! Anna is one of the better heroine sleuths in print. Not a lot of sex (in fact, NONE in a number of this series), violence to a bare minimum, Anna solves her cases as a park ranger against wonderful descriptions of the places she works. Makes me want to go camping!

So, there you go! Happy perusing!