In addition to my continuing crush on the books on Angela Thirkell I am reading a very different author, Studs Terkel. Specifically his "Hard times; an oral history of the great depression." It was written or rather compiled in about 1970, when many of the people who lived through the Depression were still relatively young. And it is scary and sad. Reading about the suffering, brutality, and desperation of that time makes me pray that the current conditions do not bring us to the brink of something worse.

I say my continuing crush on Thirkell, but it is actually a renewed crush after a brief interlude of being mad at her characters for their Tory inclinations. Then I decided that they couldn't help it, and Thirkell's tone is sardonic enough to balance the conservatism of the people and time she writes about, and that her books are too wonderful and comforting to give up. I'm now reading "Never Too Late." It follows "Enter Sir Robert," which was cute because Sir Robert, while being discussed by many of the characters throughout the book, did not actually enter until the last sentence of the last page.

Whatever you are reading, I hope it is making you happy.