If wishes were horses...

I don't really know what to say, so maybe it's time for a story. Once upon a time I was sitting in a café where it was not frowned upon to buy a skim-soy weak decaf latte. I was with an old friend and her latest boyfriend who was wearing black jeans, black doc-martins (with purple laces) and a black t-shirt boldly emblazoned with the Japanese character for "woman". Making an effort at polite conversation while I nearly threw up the god awful flavored coffee I was served we got to discussing books and he mentioned he was reading Beowulf. "That's an interesting book, I read a translation of it a few years ago." I said. He looked at me like I had just said I stole food from orphans. "I'm reading it in the original Old English, which is how it should be read!" he firmly stated. Okay...I've done quite a few language courses over the years. I've lost most of it but I can speak enough German to get into trouble, not quite enough to get out of trouble. I can chat a girl up in Spanish. I can speak a smattering of Indonesian. A very little Persian and Arabic. My two best languages are Japanese and of course English, modern English. I resisted the urge to point out that the character on his t-shirt said "woman" and told him I don't really have the time to learn a language that I would only use for a single book.Naturally he looked down on my lack of sophistication as he sipped his hazelnut flavored mochachino. So back to Elizabeth Lowell. If you've ever read her books, you know what to expect and she delivers it. There is nothing surprising in this book but it's well written and entertaining. Perhaps the biggest selling point for this book, is that pretentious gits who sit in trendy cafés pretending to read books they don't understand wouldn't be seen dead holding a book by Elizabeth Lowell. With that in mind, maybe I like Elizabeth Lowell....a lot.