Snowbound with Books in Lake Placid

To say we're snowbound is a bit of an exaggeration, but we awoke to loads of snow on the ground and snowflakes flying furiously in every direction. We ventured forth this morning, with micro-cleats and ski poles, but due to the high winds and cold (12 degrees), we made our walk on the roads a relatively short one.

Maggie, Lake Placid Lodge's resident golden retriever, snowshoed with us along the lake yesterday but didn't come with us today. She knew better. It's amazing how closely she has stayed to us. She has spent hours and hours with us in our room while we read and use our laptops, and she follows us to our table whenever we eat. Her owner, John, the general manager, says it's unusual for her to do this. Might Maggie sense our loss? We certainly have showered her with special attention. It's been good for us to practice forming an attachment to another dog. Right now she's asleep by my side.

Yes, Katrina, they better check our car before we leave tomorrow to make sure Maggie isn't hidden in the back seat!

I've got only eighty pages to go in Great House by Nicole Krauss and, I must admit, I've found it a hard read--so many difficult issues, so much melancholia. I realize the book has been listed as one of the best books of 2010,but, although the writing is fluid, cerebral, and intriguing, the links among the various stories are tenuous and obscure, from my point of view. Perhaps my evaluation will change in the final 80 pages, and if it does, I will report it.

I visited Vintage Reads this afternoon, a new book blog to me. I noted, with longing, her discussions of books by Elizabeth Bowen. I have an entire collection of Bowen's short stories. I recall one, in particular, a ghost story set in London during the Blitz. I must read that story again, and I don't know the title, so I'll have a search ahead of me.