Morality for Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith

By -
Same as what I thought about Tears of the Giraffe.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ancona, Italy and ferry to Split, Croatia

By -
Image
We took a train from Rome to Ancona, Italy, where we had a one-day stop. Ancona is about ¾ of the way up the east coast, on the Adriatic Sea. The next evening we planned to take an overnight ferry to Split, Croatia, so this seemed like a simple transfer place, but Ancona is a really neat city itself! At night I wandered around and ended up hiking to a functioning lighthouse. The stone sign is at 104 meters above sea level, about 341 feet. Our neighborhood had some nice murals / graffiti: Here is a view out over a pentagonal building formerly used as a quarantine colony, a little island right by the city, open to the public: There are quite a few drinking fountains scattered all over, and all the ones we tried worked! This is the correct way for a city to be. It is very hilly, with stairs and steep roads all over. Many narrow little alleys between buildings, and connecting passages and staircases up and down hills, between houses, churches, and pa...
Read more

The Semi-Detached House by Emily Eden

By -
Emily Eden is a delightful cross between Jane Austen and Oscar Wilde, and by Oscar Wilde, I mean The Importance of Being Earnest and An Ideal Husband (movie versions), because that's about all I'm familiar with. The Semi-Detached House is the second of her two novels that I've read. (The first was The Semi-Attached Couple , and no, I can't explain the over-use of "semi" and words about attachment or lack thereof.) The book that I have is a paperback containing both of the novels, and I have no idea where I got it. Did my Uncle Steve send it to me? Did I pick it up at a used bookstore somewhere? I have no idea. But I'm so glad to have it and that I finally got around to reading both of the books. The Semi-Detached House is about a young and recently married aristocrat who must move out to the country and into a dreaded "semi-detached" house. But I guess she's not the main character. There really isn't a main character; it's mo...
Read more

Изгрев, Пловдив (Izgrev, Plovdiv)

By -
Image
Изгрев (Izgrev) is a neighborhood of Plovdiv. Some people call it a “Gypsy” neighborhood. On the surface it looks like the poorest neighborhood in the city. There is no hard dividing line from the surrounding neighborhoods, but you know you’re here by the decaying buildings, trash, toxic burning garbage, horse-drawn wagons (sometimes carrying new washing machines as seen below!), and lots of people without work. However, there are people working. Some commute to distant jobs. Others run small businesses such as the blacksmiths below who were hammering out horseshoes when we visited, lots of small stores and car repair places, people trying to get by. There are both large apartment blocks as well as small individually-owned homes. In the midst of it all are some freshly renovated nice homes, one of which we heard was funded by family members working in Germany. The last photo is of our friends from church named Христо (Hristo) and Иван (Ivan) who live there and introduced me to some...
Read more