Hal is a working girl in a bind. She had to take over her mother’s tarot shop after she lost her to a reckless driver, and while she can usually keep her head above the water weaving stories from the cards, she made the mistake of borrowing money from a loanshark whose punitive interest rates are crushing her. But what’s this in the post, under the letters threatening dismemberment and arson? It’s a letter from a lawyer advising her that she’s mentioned in the will of some ancient society woman. Although certain it’s a mistake, Hal needs money badly, so she uses the last of her reserves for a bus ticket into gentry country. Upon arrival, things get…..weird. The Westaways are a family only slightly more stable than the Ptolemies, with several of their members despising one another. Hal tries to keep her eyes and ears open for stuff she can use to carry off the charade of being some long-lost niece, but is startled to discover a photo of her mother with the family. She is connected to these people, but the whys and hows are a mystery she’ll have to spend the entire novel puzzling through — poking through this dark, depressing house filled with miserable people, going deeper into the rabbit hole until she finds secrets disturbing enough to kill for. This is the first Ruth Ware book I’ve read and not enjoyed: the mystery is fine, but most of the characters are grating and despairing. Probably a better book to read in October than Christmas!
“Don’t think about The Lord of the Rings if you don’t even get the references, fool of a Took!”
It was a night like any other: Danny was on the stage at a dive bar, very nearly earning his keep but ruining it by digging at customers who got on his nerves. Then, one of them decided to teach Danny a lesson, and…..he wakes up in a medieval-fantasy realm, where evidently he and all those around him have stats like he’s living in an RPG game. Whaaa?
That’s the setup for An Unexpected Hero, which is an adventure story that takes refuge in audacity by not trying to justify itself. Danny the struggling singer-songwriter is now a Level 1 Bard, penniless in a fantasy kingdom peopled by the usual suspects — haflings, orcs, elves — and guided only by a voice in his head that sometimes pushes into his visual view in the guise of a screen displaying his inventory and stats. “Screenie”, as Danny dubs the guide, is sarcastic, well versed in human pop culture, and fond of double entendres. Although happy to share with Danny facts about the species and places the lost and bewildered bard is encountering, Screenie offers no insight whatsoever as to how Danny was transported into this world of “Aethonia”. Being a weak human surrounded by much more dangerous species, and in a society where the wrong word can get a fella stabbed, Danny has to learn to navigate quickly, and fortunately for him stumbles into a friendship with a giant warrior named Curr who is remarkably sensitive despite being a professional crush-kill-demolisher. Driven on by hunger and official Objectives, Danny and Curr advance into danger and a fairly fun story complete with literal character growth — as Danny levels up his skills, he also genuinely bonds with the people he’s imperiled with.
I encountered this book almost entirely because I was looking for more Bruno and Castle collabs, having enjoyed their Black Badge (western + fantasy) books so much. It helped, too, that I’ve dabbled in LitRPG before, but this one is different in that it makes no effort whatsoever to explain itself. One moment Danny is in our world, the next he’s in this fantasy realm with a talking voice in his head. The story worked for me as a straightforward and light-hearted fantasy-adventure story, with lots of humor, though I was definitely intrigued by the behind-the-curtain background, and the fact that Screenie isn’t an all-knowing guide. No spoilers, but at some point Danny becomes involved in a fairly serious quest with an enchanted object, and things begin happening that Screenie can’t understand. Even funnier, there’s some hint that Screenie is aware it’s the narrator.
This was an unusual, but fun, book: litrpg is a niche genre in itself, but I think anyone interested in adventure novels would get some enjoyment out of it. I certainly did!
Highlights:
“There is nothing that makes a man relish living like being near death.” We were quiet for a bit, listening to clay and pewter banging around the tavern, the few patrons talking and laughing. “And what if you happen to be terrified of dying?” “Then get good enough at fighting that you do not fear death,” Curr said. “It is a simple solution to a complex problem.”
You’re just playing a song you’ve never played to a crowd of people you’ve never met in a place you’ve never been on an instrument you’ve never held. What could go wrong?
“I say we just charge at them,” Curr said. “That’s the opposite of a plan,” I said. “That is untrue. I have done that on countless occasions, and I am still alive. My foes are not.”
“Now you’re complaining after basically begging me to come?” I groused. “I did not beg. I simply requested with style,” Garvis said. “All I’m saying is it could be fraught with danger.”
WHAT are you reading now? An Unexpected Hero, Rhett C. Bruno & Jaime Castle; The Death of Mrs Westaway, Ruth Ware. Also listening to Ron Swanson- um, Nick Offerman — read me Wendell Berry’s Unsettling of America, but it’s 13 hours so that will take me the better part of a month to get through.
WHAT are you reading next? Will finish a science title. Safe to say nonfiction is not making an epic comeback in 2024.
Well, this is the first time I’ve put pen to paper — er, in the digital sense — in a few days. I tried rather deliberately to disengage from Internetland during the Christmas holiday, both to be more Present during the season and to get a break from it. My project before the end of the year is to unsubscribe from some email newsletters, because I received a ridiculous amount of tech and foreign policy news on Christmas day itself. I’m really going to have to dial down the amount of substacks I’m subscribed to! I also want to reconcile Goodreads and my own list, because Goodreads is ~20 books behind.
Last weekend my ladyfriend and I visited the Ave Maria Grotto up at St. Bernard’s Abbey. This is a monastery north of Birmingham, with a prep school attached. Earlier in the 20th century, one of the brothers began recreating little models of churches, shrines, that sort of thing. It grew into a park with over 125 miniatures. It’s well worth seeing in the daytime, but during the Christmas season the brothers decorate the park, and they add music to boot. It’s magical experience, one where freezing temperatures can be countered with hot chocolate.
Main Street | Montevallo, AL
The library was closed Tuesday through Thursday for Christmas, but I didn’t get up to much besides Christmas worship with the ladyfriend, both at her church in Leeds and mine at St. Paul’s. Our Christmas Eve service is always magical, the great nave festooned with red ribbons, poinsettias, and glowing candles: the sconce scandals are only lit for Christmas Eve services, I think, unless we do an evening Epiphany service. I also attended services Christmas Day, both because I wanted to (haven’t missed one offered in thirteen years), and because there’s a curious lack of people willing to serve on the altar Christmas Day. I did most of my family feasting on Christmas Eve, and spent Christmas Day visiting friends and “framily”, not getting home until close to 11 at night. One particular joy for me was that my blood family and godfamily from church got to spend time together: it’s not often those two worlds intersect.
I’ve received a few books for Christmas so far — I say so far because my ladyfriend is under the weather, so we haven’t been able to exchange — including a “Weird Travel Guide” that highlighted the Grotto for Alabama; the Oregon Trail guide to adulting; and John Grisham’s Framed, which slightly amuses me because I’m pretty sure the giver meant to give me Grisham’s Camino Ghosts. One “book” I gave myself was a journal from Paperblanks, discovered via BookStooge.Paperblanks makes journals with special designs: this one is a drawing of Amy Winehouse with a reproduction of her handwritten lyrics. Amy Winehouse has been one of my favorite artists since I heard NPR reviewing her new cd back in…2006 or so, so I’m hoping this item will lure me back into regular journaling.
I began regular journaling in 1997, and was fairly consistent with it until 2007, when I moved to university. I say “fairly consistent” because 2007 was also the year my writing itch began getting scratched here, but I continued journaling throughout university, using the back sides of sheets as a commonplace of sorts and the front sides for my writing. I was reading constantly at college, because I had direct and daily access to a massive university library with books to supply any intellectual curiosity, and I’d hole up in a cubby reading Erich Fromm or Epictetus, scribbling down quotes and my thinking about them. But tragedy struck: during one of my moves back and forth between home and the university, I lost that journal, and I was so crushed by this I just stopped writing altogether. I’ve made attempts to restart over the years — I probably have five composition notebooks with a handful of entries and then nothing — but I’m optimistic about this one. Since the Kingsnorth conference I’ve been wanting to root myself more in material reality, which includes physically writing and not just typing.
After today, I’ll have another big break and not return to work until Wednesday, so we’ll see what kind of reading I get up to. I still want to post reviews for Anxious Generation and Bad Therapy before the year’s endsince they’re both on the top ten list for this year. Hope your year is winding now nicely!
Note: this is a scheduled post. I don’t plan on doing any interneting today, but here’s some music to deliver Christmas cheer should you need it! This is a mix of pieces my choir has done, as well as secular pieces.
He is come in peace in the winter’s stillness Like a gentle snowfall in the gentle night He is come in joy like the sun at morning Filling all the world with radiance and with light He is come in love as the child of Mary In a simple stable, we have seen his birth Gloria in excelsis, Deo Gloria in excelsis, Deo Hear the angels singing Peace on Earth
You’re welcome.
And Mary bore Jesus Christ our Saviour for to be, And the first tree in the greenwood, it was the holly. Holly! Holly! And the first tree in the greenwood, it was the holly!
Well, look at this! A Christmas Eve top ten Tuesday. Merry Christmas, one and all! Today’s TTT concerns books we hope Santa brings, but I’m just going to go with books I added to my wanna read list on goodreads. And then, I’ll look at the same list I did last year to see how many I actually read. But first, the Tuesday tease!
You can’t influence fate, or change what’s out of your control. But you can choose what you yourself do with the cards you’re dealt. (The Death of Mrs. Westaway, Ruth Ware)
Kolyma Tales, Varlam Shalamov. Rod Dreher declared this collection of gulag short stories the best Russian short fiction since Chekov.
Tech Agnostic: How Technology Became the World’s Most Powerful Religion, Greg Epstein. See his piece in the Boston Globe, “My Name is Greg, and I’m a Tech Addict“.
The Last Days of Budapest: The Destruction of Europe’s Most Cosmopolitan Capital, Adam LeBor
Misreading Scripture with Individualist Eyes, Randolph E. Richards
No Scrap Left Behind: My Year Without Food Waste, Teralyn Pilgrim
The Situation Room: The Inside Story of Presidents in Crisis, George Stephanopolous
Magic Pill: The Extraordinary Benefits and Disturbing Risks of the New Weight Loss Drugs, Johann Hari
Camino Ghosts, John Grisham.
The Future of Buildings, Transportation and Power, Roger Duncan and Michael Webber
Supremacy: AI, ChatGPT, and the Race that Will Change the World, Parmy Olson
And now, let’s take a look at last year’s post! Of the ten in that list, I read three: Distracted by Alabamaand The Anxious Generation. I’m still working on a review for Anxious Generation. Remaining, then are:
Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe, Norman Davies. Guessing this will feature times when Sweden and Poland were continental powers to be reckoned with.
Networks of New York: A Field Guide to Urban Internet Infrastructure
The Path: What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About the Good Life
Blood Passion: The Ludlow Massacre and Class War in the American West
The Power of Meaning: Finding Fulfillment in a World Obsessed with Happiness
The Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity
Data Driven: Truckers, Technology, and the New Workplace Surveillance
2024 is winding down, and blogwise it feels like it’s already crashed into bed, has covered itself with comforters, and has no plans to stir until spring has come. I’ve been oddly busy with Christmas merriment, and don’t see any break there until the end of this week. Even so, the imminent arrival of the New Year bids thinking about.
(1) The Classics Club. I still have sixteen books left on my CC, and 2025’s the final year on that so I need to get cracking. The two most daunting prospects are The Shahnameh and Democracy in America. Democracy would be a logical beginning given the inauguration coming up.
(2) Rereads. I’ve mentioned before that 2013 was a huge year in reading for me, not in terms of number but rather because of the quality of the reads and their timing, because my entire worldview was being reappraised and reconfigured, rather like it had been in 2006. Some of the books I read that year, like The Life and Death of Great American Cities, fundamentally changed my thinking, and I’m interested in seeing what I think of these mind-changing books now. I’d like to re-read at least five titles: Crunchy Cons, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Plain Reader, small is Beautiful, and any Wendell Berry essay collection. Death and Life is one book I never properly reviewed at the time, in part because it was such a game changer.
(3) European history outside the “big three”
I read a lot of European history, but it’s almost always related to England, France, or Germany. I know almost nothing of Spain save for isolated episodes (Age of Discovery, Napoleonic wars), my Italian history is entirely Roman or WW2 related, I’m continually fascinated to stumble upon facts like Portugal had a long fascist period, or that Sweden and Poland were once serious continental powers, and Eastern Europe is….a complete unknown to me, aside from what I’ve learned trying to understand Russo-American relations since 2008 or so. This, despite having read Durant’s epic Story of Civilization! So, what I’d like to do, grad school and ladyfriend permitting, is read more broadly across European history. I’m naming the challenge after something that young people of means used to do before they settled into their adult responsibilities, touring the Continent’s artistic treasures — especially those in Italy. I’m going to be “traveling” more broadly than that, beginning with Iberia and meandering easterly. We’ll see if my route makes any sense at all!
(4) Science Survey. The Science Survey continues, of course, nevermind my only barely completing it this year (technically I haven’t finished it yet, but there’s days yet). Oddly, I haven’t developed a formal prospects list like I usually do:Crossings, about how human-made roads shape ecology, is on my list, and that’s really about it.
Honestly, the Classics Club challenge alone will be a hard ask for this year, so I’m probably not going to be participating in many challenges outside of these, unless Alex of At Boundary’s Edge does another fun SF challenge.
As far as general goals, I want to repeat my two unofficial goals from last year: keep purchased books under 10% and keep unreviewed books to a minimum. I’m currently standing at four, which is so much better than that one year when over ten percent of my reading was un-commented-upon here. The problem with this year’s un-reviews is that they’re really good ones, so I’m going to try to get something out for them before January 1st. Speaking of, here’s a very nebulous idea of what is coming:
January: Usually a varied “fun month” to kick things off. I might do a nod to US presidents around January 20th.
February: Possibly a tip of the hat to l’amour and relationships in the middle of the month.
March: Lenten devotional reading, followed by Opening Day! Baseball will be back at bat at the month’s end.
April: Read of England, but of course!
May: (shrug)
June & July: American Revolution tribute and possibly Space Camp, the latter depending on if I can find more reads.
August, September (shrug)
October: German history & possibly something appropriate for Halloween, depending on my mood.
November: I’m assuming there will be a big SF challenge.
This week I’ve read three books about lonely old men finding connection. I already posted a review for The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife, but here are two more. They were both absolutely lovely, and featured friendships and connection across generational gaps.
Frank is a lonely widower who, since his wife died, has become a stranger to virtually everyone. His son and he fought bitterly after the funeral, and since then Frank hasn’t left his house or yard. He relies on the nice chaps next door to pick up groceries and supplies and the like. His only company is his dead wife, who, contra “being dead” insists on appearing in the house and chatting with him. Although he’s certain he’s going mad, and confident that the wife he’s seeing is just a figment of his imagination, he’ll take being able to talk to her over being ‘sane’. And then, his elderly neighbor — the best neighbor ever, never seen or heard from — dies and a young mom and her son move in. And the son, Red? Red is friendly. And worse, persistent. Frank and Red is the story of a cross-generational friendship about two lonely people who, despite one of them being an obnoxious chatterbox and the other being a foul-tempered grump, find friendship and are able to move the other to face the challenges in their life. While Frank serves as a begrudging father figure to the boy (offering advice that that horrifies the mom and boy’s teachers, but works nontheless), Red’s curiosity about what happened between Frank and his own son pushes Frank outside of his comfort zone.
The Story of Arthur Truluv begins much less bitterly: here again we have a slightly lonely widower, but Arthur is not a bitter recluse. His life lacks the deep satisfaction that came from marriage with his sweet Nola, but he has a routine, and he does keep his neighbor company from time to time, rocking on her front porch and ocassionally going to dinner. Every day, Arthur goes to the cemetery and has his lunch with Nola, sitting near her grave and talking to her as he would if she were sitting there with him, picnicking in the necropolis. Arthur is a sensitive soul who also seems to hear what the other dead have to say, and he listens to to them. One day he happens to spot a young lady, a teenager, who is also a regular visitor to the cemetery, and they strike up an unlikely friendship. As it happens, the teenager Maddy could use a friend at the moment: she’s always been a bit of an outsider in class, and she was dating a lout who was using her for pleasure rather than being invested in a relationship with her, and now he’s tossed her aside like a used tissue. And….she’s pregnant. Arthur Trulov is a beautiful story about cross-generational friendships, as Maddy finds support in not only Arthur, a man with the affection of a grandfather but who was denied the opportunity, but in Lucille as well, who goes through a tragedy of her own. Together these three wounded souls find a way through the adversities of life.
Highlights from Frank and Red:
He looked at Marcie accusingly. ‘That’s your fault. You moved the curtain.’ ‘Franklin, I’m a figment of your imagination. How the hell did I move it?!’
‘As is a tale, so is a life. Not in how long it is, but how good it is.’
‘Okay,’ Red said after a minute. ‘I’ll go again. I spy with my little eye something beginning with L.’ ‘ ‘Is it the last dying embers of my will to live?’ Frank replied. ‘Nope!’ said Red, delighted that Frank was apparently now fully involved. ‘Guess again.’ There was another long minute. ‘It’s lamp post! See? The lamp post over there.’ Red pointed towards the street. ‘Your turn.’
Life is a big hole, unless you fill it with things, people and experiences and stuff. And that’s what you need to do.
Frank’s clothes were scattered in tiny mounds all over their bedroom and bathroom, as though a gang of old men dressed in Marks and Spencer’s trousers and shirts had been raptured where they stood.
Highlights from Arthur Truluv:
Arthur is eighty-five years old. He guesses he does want to live to be one hundred, even without Nola. It’s not the same without her, though. Not one thing is the same. Even something as simple as looking at a daffodil, as he is doing now—someone has planted double-flowered daffodils at the base of a nearby headstone. But seeing that daffodil with Nola gone is not the same, it’s like he’s seeing only part of it.
Everybody has thoughts that shame them. You can’t control them coming in. But you don’t have to let them all out. That’s the crux of it. That’s what made for civilization, what was left of it, anyway.
He changes his shirt and combs his hair, inspects his teeth. As he’s going out the door, he tells Gordon, “I’ll be back. Guard the house. Shoot if necessary.” The cat yawns. “You don’t exactly inspire confidence,” Arthur says.
Nola used to get perturbed with his quiet. “Oh!” she’d say, sometimes. “I just wish you’d make yourself a little livelier!” Once when she said that, it was at dinner and he rose up from the table, took in a deep breath, and yodeled good and loud for a full half minute. And Nola stared at him in amazement. “I didn’t know you knew how to yodel!” she said. And he said, “Now you do.” “Why didn’t I know you could yodel?” she asked, and he said it didn’t really come up that much, the need to yodel.
Life is such a funny thing. It’s so funny. So arbitrary-seeming, but sometimes he just can’t help but think that there really is a grand plan. In a way, it reminds him of square dancing, how you can see the pattern fully only by looking at it from above, by not being a part of it.
Frank had then made the case for the fact that mobile phones were the worst thing that had happened to humanity since it had crawled out of the mud, and told Red he would rather set fire to himself than own one of those godforsaken things. ‘You know there’s more computer stuff in them than NASA took to land on the moon. And what do we use them for? You see ’em out front there, walking down the street, the gormless buggers, their heads buried in the things. There could be a hole in the road the size of the Grand Canyon and they’d walk straight into it and still be tippy-tapping away on YouTubes and Instantgran and Arsebook. And not even bloody words: smiley faces and L.O.L. and D.F.S. and God knows what else. People don’t talk to each other anymore; it’s all texting.
And if it had come as a surprise to find out that adults did not know everything, it was even more of a shock to find out that, in fact, it was worse: adults were idiots. Yeah. They pretended to be super clever, walking about wearing suits and drinking coffee and eating salad, and driving and tying their own shoelaces, but when it came down to it, they were nowhere near as clever as they pretended to be.
From “After Babel”, a substack written in part by Jonathan Haidt. This is a guest post from Professor Nicholas Smyth, who teaches a course called “Ethnics and the Internet”.
“One thing I’ve been learning is that opposition to smartphones and to social media is definitely not just a “kids these days” phenomenon, because the kids themselves are often far more jaded and angry about digital technology than I am.
“On day one, I always put Jon’s question to my class: if you could erase the smartphone and social media from ever having existed, would you do it? Over the past three years, 81% of them have said ‘yes’.1 These students are of course not representative of the general student population, but even if the real number were something like 50%, something very funny is going on. I ask them: can you think of a new technology, at any point in history, where half of its primary users quickly wished that it had never been invented?
“[…]What other tech is like this? The only clear analogue my students usually come up with is the nuclear bomb. Famously, creators and possessors of the bomb often fervently wished they could put that genie back into that bottle. Yet, what does it say about the smartphone and social media that their clearest analogue here is a technology that could easily destroy the entire surface of the earth several times over? “
“My students, upon encountering McLuhan’s idea, immediately see that the smartphone and its typical apps must also be communicating such messages. This year, they offered these examples: your voice matters, people want to see you, you can be popular. It doesn’t matter how many educational podcasts or instructional videos someone consumes, they are holding a device which is delivering these unconscious messages, and those messages are changing them. And readers of this blog know that those changes are not always for the best.”
WHAT have you finished reading recently? The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife, a charming story about a lovely old man on the verge of homelessness who, after an accident, find himself taken for someone else and wakes up in a warm, cozy nursing home with fun characters and food on the regular.
WHAT are you reading now? I’m trekking through Accidental Hero, a “LitRPG” story in which a guitarist finds himself inexplicably in a medieval fantasy realm, albeit with a video game interface giving him quests and stats.
WHAT are you reading next? It’s Christmastide and the end of the year, who on Earth knows? Three possibilities:
Frederick Fife is a warm-hearted old soul who’s something of the polar opposite of say, Ebeneezer Scrooge: he has the milk of human kindness in every vein and flowing out of his ears, but he’s penniless and soon to be homeless. Then one day he spies a man who could be his twin looking quite unwell, having fallen out of a wheelchair near the river. Fred tries to help him, but after a hard trip Fred is concussed and his doppelganger is in the river. Fred awakes to find himself dressed in another man’s robes, and in another man’s life. He tries in vain to tell them the truth, but they all assume “Bernard’s” dementia is just getting worse. The nursing home has good, regular food; a comfortable chair; and people to talk to. Although it doesn’t sit too well with him, the news that “Frederick Fife’s” body has been pulled out of the river prompts Fred to give in and begin enjoying himself — and then Bernard’s estranged daughter shows up.The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife is an impressive debut: although its story of human connection would be a hit by itself, Johnston adds to that the topics of dementia, elder care, and alcoholism — all of which are not simply thrown in, but instrumental to making the hit an absolute home run.
Fred, it should be noted, is the sweetest and most adorable of characters. He is the anti-Scrooge, the anti-Ove. Well, maybe not the anti-Ove, bcause Ove could be sweet in his way — but neither character were open to the hearts of others. Fred is a man who has loved, and deeply, and though the cruelities of life — his beloved Dawn’s miscarriage, their inability to have kids, and her death from cancer — might have rendered others cold and cynical, Fred has continued living with gratitude and warmth. Problem is, he has no one to be warm to: he has no relatives, no family, and he’s bankrupt from Dawn’s medical bills. His being confused for “Bernard Greer”, a notorious sourpuss, suddenly gives Fred not only material shelter, but people who to be a friend to. He becomes fast friends with Albert, for instance, a man deep in the throes of dementia but who is absolutely merry and dotes on his wife, Val, seeing her with the same eyes his infatuated teen self did decades ago. Fred has an enormous affect on the life of those in the nursing home, patients and staff alike: one young couple on the nursing staff are brought together by his advice!
This novel is three stories of unequal weight: primarily, we’re following Fred as he begins learning about Bernard was and adapts his behavior to better fit in. Bernie had an issue hearing, for instance, and sometimes wet the bed. We get one nurse’s point of view: overworked Denise is increasingly aware that her husband is cheating on her — with her friend, yet! — and falling into the bottle even as she tries to figure out why Bernard is suddenly so much more friendly. Eventually she and Fred/Bernard’s stories become conjoined. More powerfully, though, we follow a young girl growing up and watching her big sister be stricken with leukemia, finding no support from her father who is a tyrannical grump with a habit of lashing out with things. This, we learn in time — when Hannah appears in Fred’s room — is Bernard’s long estranged daughter, who hates Bernie for abandoning her and her mother at her sister’s funeral. Fred is thus put into a hell of a pickle: does he dare pretend to be Bernard and help this woman forgive her father, whose returned and unsent letters indicate that he hated himself for what he did and yearned for reconnection with his daughter?
This is an “all the feels” kind of book, one that smartly incorporates Johnston’s history working in elder care. I do hope Johnston writes more: this title reminded me of Rachel Joyce, who I discovered and fell over the moon for this year.
Reading Freely 