You're not a REAL MAN until you've left your wife at home to walk to the grocery store.

And presumably asked for condoms, beer and suppositories, followed by a Tim Allen-like belch...

I just got an Amazon.ca order, which is making me very happy. It includes an A.S. Byatt collection I did not realize was actually coming out in the U.S. this month, until I saw it in a bookstore yesterday. I have mixed feelings about this mistake. Because, you know, money. Also, the American edition is prettier. But it's not black. I feel this is problematic for a book called The Little Black Book of Stories.

I read The Handmaid's Tale a while ago. Am I mis-remembering that everything she put in the book had already happened somewhere in the world, just not all together?

Well of Lost Plots, the third book in the Fforde series, was my favorite by far.

Love the title. For me, the surprise of the premise of Lost in a Good Book makes it my favorite though WoLP is a lot of fun. The middle one was very disappointing.

I read The Many Lives and Secret Sorrows of Josephine B (historical fiction by sandra Gulliand) on the recent (and final) college tour. It is very popular with book groups in our town and I really enjoyed it. Best part: there are two more which I hope will be as entertaining.

BTW, anyone know anything about the University of Tulsa? It seems to be the front runner for my daughter.

BTW, anyone know anything about the University of Tulsa? It seems to be the front runner for my daughter.

*blinks*

*looks up again*

Oh, Susan *C*, not Susan *W*. Okay. 'Cause otherwise, man, talk about trying to set a child's college plans early...

(And, er, no, I don't know anything about the University of Tulsa, I'm afraid.)

Hee-that's ok, Katie M. There are just so damn many Susans out here. At our little bookstore 4 out of 20 employees are named some varient of Susan. At the previous one, it was Ann(a) : Rosanna, Joannah, Anna and Anne. Almost had to change my name to Susannah.

Susan, I attended the University of Tulsa for a semester in an abortive attempt to get a PhD. From what I remember of it, the campus is beautiful, the classes were far harder than anything I'd ever experienced before in my life, the instructors were from all over the world and very well educated in their various fields, the advisors were helpful and supportive, financial aid a little less so but not bad, and they had a rugby team. It's my understanding it's a very well regarded school.

Thanks, Deena! She filled out the rest of her forms today so we'll be seeing a lot of Tulsa over the next 4 years.

On topic, I saw that Jonathan Kellerman has a new Alex Delaware book. I really enjoyed the first 4 or 5 in that series but some of the later ones were too dark and bitter for me. Anyone know about this new one? I need a good mystery/thriller fix.

The Susan-confusion thing becomes even funnier when you know that my husband grew up in Tulsa. No one in his family went to UT, though. He went to Colorado and everyone else went to Oklahoma.

Football is a very popular topic at family gatherings.

*blinks*

*looks up again*

Oh, Susan *C*, not Susan *W*.

Look, Ma, I get the second double-take of the day. Welcome, Susan C. I don't know nothing about Tulsa, except that Mercedes Lackey lives there. And it's flat.

msbelle, I believe you are right that Atwood, sadly, assembled "Handmaid's Tale" from various bits of verifiable fact. It makes me have a cold shiver and a deep sense of gratitude that I myself have enjoyed a goodly portion of civil rights in my time.

Here is probably a good moment to mention that I've just read the new Sharon Shinn novel, "Angel-Seeker," and the storyline goes into the question of slavery. Not just your traditional kidnapped from your home and laboring in the fields slavery, but also the sort of restrictions upon women practiced by certain cultures who like to keep their women all locked up.