But, the second half of the book proved me wrong.

One reason I had my initial reaction is the depth of knowledge demonstrated by Norman F Cantor about such a wide range of topics.

From the Plantagenet dynastic history to the changes in societal structures, each section is covered very thoroughly. Really, it was to the point that I sometimes forgot which history topic I was actually investigating.

Cantor went deeper than I was expecting with certain chapters, but he does always manage to bring them back around to the Black Death and make me remember the book’s title with a start.

By the end of the book, I gained a strong appreciation for how Europe changed because of these waves of deaths.

They affected the dreams of monarchs for power and territory. They transformed the economics of an agrarian society dependent upon human labor and consequently upset the previously rigid class structures.

I especially found the chapter on Jewish history fascinating. Under torture, Jews were forced to confess that they were causing the plague. Their subsequent murders and banishments around Europe really set the stage for how their histories came to play out in the twentieth century.

In the Wake of the Plague is an involved book and probably not that accessible to the casual reader. It requires a certain amount of prior knowledge to really get what the writer wants to convey. If you have that starting base though, this book can fill out you understandings and information pretty quickly.

Audiobook Challenge: one down, eleven to go.

I’m a fan of both genres although I’ve seen more movies and TV shows than I’ve read books. So this is the first time I’m meeting Chandler’s famous Philip Marlowe. Unlike Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade, Marlowe is more of an upstanding guy by our standards. Marlowe is like a knight-errant in the service of his clients. Even though we may not be able to see why his particular clients in this story are so worthy of his sacrifices, he knows he has to continue living by his own code.

This brings romanticism to the character, but we also know of the alienation and bleakness that arise from his choices. As good as he is at what he does, he is not a happy man.

The plot of The Big Sleep is simultaneously brilliant and sloppy. The book is set out as a series of mysteries but these are not the kind of mysteries that you’re supposed to follow along and figure out by the clues left along the way.

I would liken it to what Agatha Christie writes, where the story is enjoyable and the characters are interesting, and really, you may as well relax about the solution to the puzzle because you’re not going to figure it out. The author didn’t create the work with the intention of helping you along.

The Big Sleep has plenty of style and progression of plot, but true mystery aficionados are going to be frustrated.

So what’s so brilliant about the plot then? One, Marlowe succeeds right off the bat, and I can’t elaborate further about that without spoiling the action. Two, Marlowe becomes the mystery, and again, I can’t say any more. Structurally, Chandler has done something so witty and playful here. Unfortunately, an understanding of his humor on this front won’t be possible until the end.

But in the meantime, all throughout the book, Chandler is going to make you smile. There are just great turns in the language.

New Author Challenge: four completed, eleven to go.
1001 Books To Read Before You Die list: 79 down

• This Daily Puppy is seriously cute. Look at his ears!
• The early days of Great Books.
• I haven’t been a regular reader of comic books in a long time, but this video by Chicago Comic Vault is great for several reasons.

It shows how comic book shops can, and really need to, build a community to support their business. One may think that the Venn diagram showing comic book store owners and techies will have a large shared area, but that’s just not true. It’s still very analog out there.

Also, Matt is so right about the publishers needing to parcel out the story better when they do their mega crossover events. Back in my reading days, I hated having to go around and around to collect all the pieces. Get me interested in the characters and let me pick up their book to try later. Don’t piecemeal me to death.

The food is fresh and tasty. I loved that it wasn’t overly salted. The broth in my noodle soup was full of flavor but still light. To me, it tasted as if they’ve been simmering that stock with some really good stuff for a really long time. As a person who adores soup, I was so happy that this was a bowl I could clean out without being dehydrated from the sodium or weighed down with oil.

I’ve been reading some of the reviews on Yelp, and a lot of the negative ones complain about flavorless food. This must be why I really enjoyed my meal. I don’t use a lot of seasoning in my own cooking at home so when I eat out, I can find the food over the top at times. Why drown out flavor and taste with artificiality?

I tried the boyfriend’s curry dish, and that was very yummy—creamy and lip smacking. And everyone in my party seemed to enjoy his/her bubble drinks.

I do wish the entree portions and rice allocations were just a little bit bigger, but overall, this was a great find.

Little Women was the first book I ever bought with my own money. This book was mine, and the first addition to what was surely to be the magnificent library in my future.

I recently read a review of this book at Page Turners, and it brought all these memories back to me.

I remembered that for years, I would come back to this book. During middle school, high school, college and beyond, I would reread Little Women for the pure enjoyment of it.

Then one year, and I don’t remember how long ago it was, I couldn’t make it through. I got annoyed with it. Did it somehow lose its resonance with me? Was I so changed that I no longer wanted to read what is arguably the most influential book of my life?

I still don’t have that answer. It surely can’t be that I’m too old for it or that its simplistic world view no longer applies to my life can it?

I’ve gotten rid of a lot of my book collection. That dream of having a Henry-Higgins-like library has been replaced by others, but I still have my original Little Women. Surely it will come back to me.

With Netflix, there really is no need for a multiple-year commitment on a mythology-based show. I’ve been burned by The X-Files and more recently by Battlestar Galactica. After all those years, the ending sucked and kind of sucked—respectively.

I know I said before that I was ok with the ending of Battlestar Galactica, but it turns out that I’m not that satisfied. And the lack of a spectacular ending has tainted the rest of the episodes for me. I used to watch my boxed sets all the time. Now, I’m considering getting rid of them.

So I’m holding out on Lost. If the mystery gets some kind of above-average resolution, all the seasons will go into my Netflix queue right away. If the ending betrays the spirit of the series, I’ll pass on the entire thing. After all, everyone made such a big deal about the show’s preordained voluntary end date. If being able to plan that well doesn’t result in a really good mystery-show run, how is any other show going to get me to believe?

• I’m kind of obsessed with Neil Gaiman after finishing The Sandman series. But when he is able to speak such truth and love about Doctor Who? I may be his forever.
• Get some new ideas on your next Costco shopping trip.

It was one of those reading experiences in which I started slowing down and stalling towards the end. I didn’t want to finish the run because I knew that that would be that. No more.

I think the series’s storytelling is of the type that feels like you’re reading a tale you’ve always known but it feels like something refreshingly new at the same time.

His interpretation of the worlds of some classic myths and classic gods (Loki, Bast, Lucifer, etc.) feel well established yet I know that I have never encountered them before. Old, new, and timeless—all at the same time.

There are way too many themes, interesting characters, and fantastic plot lines to cover here. Just give it a try.

New Author Challenge: three completed, twelve to go.

Here’s a photo of Thunder dog. You can see in the painting just how much more gray he has around the muzzle now. The poor guy is getting really curmudgeony for all his cuteness. He’s grumbling more and finds puppies annoying. I’m sure he’d tell the punks to get off his lawn if he knew the cliche.

Thunder has an arch-enemy in our building. The boyfriend did a holiday art commission of that dog and commented how much they are really built alike. We people have always known that, but somehow the two dogs believe they are worlds apart.