Curently reading; "La mort et la belle vie" de Richard Hugo (a translation of "Death and the good life")

Il est drôle, naïf, flegmatique sans être mollasson, poète et amoureux des femmes. " J'étais content de ne plus être jeune. Le monde est bien plus beau quand on devient assez vieux pour se rendre compte combien les femmes sont séduisantes à tout âge ". Lui, c'est Al Barnes alias Barnes la tendresse, retraité prématuré de la police à la suite de blessures graves. Lors d'une interpellation, il n'avait pas passé les menottes au " gentil vieillard " qui souffrait de " mauvaise circulation " et le " gentil vieillard " lui avait logé trois balles dans le corps. Barnes s'installe donc à Plains, Montana, et se dégote un boulot d'adjoint au shérif, une petite amie, et la certitude que ce sympathique patelin ne lui occasionnera pas un turbin trop coriace. Et pourtant, de mauvaises surprises il en sera question, à commencer par ce tranquille pêcheur retrouvé la tête explosée par quelques disgracieux coups de hache… Et là n'est bien sûr que le début d'une enquête tumultueuse et difficile qui nécessairement le ramène à la ville, Portland. " A la réflexion, je ne regrettais plus tellement la ville. Quand on vit avec tant de violence autour de soi, on finit par l'accepter. On se surprend à plaisanter à ce sujet pour être sûr qu'on est encore humain. " Al Barnes n'aura vécu que l'espace d'un livre, mais son nom est à mettre aux côtés de ceux de Philip Marlowe, Lew Archer ou Sam Spade, qui font aujourd'hui figures de mythe. Richard Hugo, poète, initiateur de l'école de Missoula, meurt d'une leucémie deux ans après la sortie de son premier polar. Dommage. Il avait amorcé là, entre l'humour caustique et cynique de Jim Thompson et la prose souple et fluide de Raymond Chandler, une voix singulière, rencontre d'une jouissance poétisée, presque épicurienne et d'un réel sans enchantement. --Sylvaine Jeminet--


Al Barnes is a good but admittedly "mushy hearted" homicide cop who trades his stressful Seattle beat for a small-town deputy's life in rural Montana. The peace is disrupted when a local fisherman and a mill owner are found gruesomely axed. Barnes is drawn into a twenty-year-old unsolved case near Portland, adding to an already puzzling search through murky secrets and sweeping him up in the decadent "good life" of his suspects.

Audiobook: "Vanishing Acts" by Jodi Picoult

Delia Hopkins has led a charmed life. Raised in rural New Hampshire by her widowed father, Andrew, she now has a young daughter, a handsome fiancé, and her own search-and-rescue bloodhound, which she uses to find missing persons. But as she plans her wedding, she is plagued by flashbacks of a life she can’t recall.

And when a policemen arrives to disclose a truth that will upend the world as she knows it, Delia must search through these memories – even when they have the potential to devastate her life, and the lives of those she loves most. Vanishing Acts is a book about the nature and power of memory; about what happens when the past we have been running from catches up to us… and what happens when the memory we thought had vanished returns as a threat.

Thank you cards

Audiobook: "Best Friends Forever" by Jennifer Weiner

Bestselling author Jennifer Weiner’s dazzling new novel Best Friends Forever explores the impact of love, desire, and familial loss on a friendship between two young women, and how the choices they make will change their lives forever.

One of the nation’s most beloved and successful writers of women’s fiction, Jennifer Weiner has become a literary phenomenon with millions of copies of her books in print. Her latest work, Best Friends Forever will delight fans and critics alike, following the ups and downs of a long-time friendship between two young girls who grow up to be two very different women. Addie Downs and Valerie Adler were eight when they first met and decided to be best friends forever. But, in the wake of tragedy and betrayal during their teenage years, everything changed. Val went on to fame and fortune. Addie stayed behind in their small Midwestern town. Destiny, however, had more in store for these two. And when, twenty-five years later, Val shows up at Addie’s front door with blood on her coat and terror on her face, it is the beginning of a wild adventure for two women joined by love and history who find strength together that they could not find alone.

Currently reading: "Bound for Murder" by Laura Childs

Carmela Bertrand is creating custom place cards for a friend's pre-wedding party at an elegant French Quarter restaurant when she makes a shocking discovery--the intended groom has a butcher knife protruding from his neck! When the heartbroken bride asks Carmela to look into the case, Carmela finds herself not just in the soup--she's in the gumbo! Besides battling her estranged husband, Shamus, Carmela has to deal with an alligator-infested bayou, an angry rare book collector, shadowy figures, and a spooky encounter in one of New Orleans' cemeteries!

Melanis' birthday card

Audiobook: "House Rules" by Jodi Picoult

HOUSE RULES is about Jacob Hunt, a teenage boy with Asperger’s Syndrome. He’s hopeless at reading social cues or expressing himself well to others, and like many kids with AS, Jacob has a special focus on one subject – in his case, forensic analysis.

He’s always showing up at crime scenes, thanks to the police scanner he keeps in his room, and telling the cops what they need to do…and he’s usually right. But then one day his tutor is found dead, and the police come to question him. All of the hallmark behaviors of Asperger’s – not looking someone in the eye, stimulatory tics and twitches, inappropriate affect – can look a heck of a lot like guilt to law enforcement personnel -- and suddenly, Jacob finds himself accused of murder. HOUSE RULES looks at what it means to be different in our society, how autism affects a family, and how our legal system works well for people who communicate a certain way – but lousy for those who don’t.

Birthday card. Challenge February 2012

Winter Layout. Layout exchange February 2012

Heart card. February 2012 card exchange