Currently Reading

Library of Shadows by Mikkel Birkegaard....sigh...I had such high hopes for this book, I don't know how I manage to get suckered into this sort of thing time and time again, because the end result is always disappointment.   Here, once again, we have a Da Vinci Code Wannabe.  Here, once again, we have a Da Vinci Code No Where Near As Good As The Real Thing.   When, oh when will I learn not to waste my money.   I can't even bring myself to finish it, and I am kicking myself for the utter waste of time I put in it to get to the half way point, knowing I will go no further with it.   Get my drift?  Not even worth borrowing from your local library.

Enchanted Adornments: Creating Mixed-Media Jewelry with Metal Clay, Wire, Resin, and More by Cynthia Thornton - interesting, challenging, visually beautiful and inspiring with lots of diversions in terms of little side-articles that take you away from 'just' jewellery design and making and into the realms of symbolism of design and other interesting avenues.
A charming and useful book, highly recommended, if you only use it for eye-candy and those days where you sit at your workbench, stumped, (though it offers so much more) this is well worth reading.
Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman - I like the film, but I LOVE the book.   Of course often books and film bear little resemblance to each other, and this is somewhat the case here.  Hoffman's writing is full of feminine wisdom and she feels like the sort of person you'd love to have as a friend.  Having said that, the ending is slightly out of whack considering she's been working so hard to have all the female characters as strong and independent (can we feel a bit of arm twisting by the publishers there?) but if you overlook that as more than likely 'office politics' this is a charming, unusual and life affirming book that no-one should miss.   Lovely, lovely, lovely.
Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton - oh my goodness, another wonderful book!!  I stayed up all night with matchsticks propped up under my eyelids to read this, it is fantastic (I constantly promised myself 'just one more chapter, then I'll go to bed....well, I just read and read, right to the very end).   If you want a great story with fab characters, this one is it...I'd never read anything by Michael Crichton before, but as this one was already getting great reviews all over the place, how bad could it really be?, I reasoned.   I am so glad I decided to go for this one, and I will certainly be reading more of Crichton's work - this particular book was apparently found amongst his papers as a complete novel after his death in 2008.   Its full of swashbuckling, derring-do, frankly fairly unbelievable stuff, but still, very very entertaining and very evocative.   Don't miss it.