B E B E R E

Got plenty to read, too. I want to knit, but if I can't keep track of the stitches or I'm not allowed to bring my needles on board (happened the last trip back from France), I'll read.

Finished the Tuchman book on the 14th Century and Audubon's collected writings. Didn't know which to follow up with first (The Tuchman was a great followup to the Amy Kelly book in Eleanor of Aquitaine - thought I might go back to what I'd read in college to hang onto the framework that both these books gave.). Decided on reading around Audubon, as the first contemporary who came to mind was another Frenchman doing pretty well both as a writer and a bureaucrat under Napoleon's reign: Stendhal. (Why not? It was either going to be him or Tocqueville.) Got my spanking new copy of Le Rouge et le Noir (lost the old one. Have 85 different copies of his treatise on Love, but don't much feel like that right now. Need some drama, some sharp wit, some biting social commentary. When I get tired of Stendhal, I have some Twain short stories to lift my spirits and some essays by Jeanne Kirkpatrick to bring me down (not that I'll be needing any of that this weekend).

Mostly, though, I hope to knit.