New books

So, yesterday evening I finished Irish Stew! - I thoroughly enjoyed it. I wasn't very close to the correct solutions to either mystery, but I'm not usually, so that's nothing new. A couple of posts ago, I commented that Nuala and Dermot's third child was born premature just as I was. As I was reading the book and Socra Marie kept going back to the hospital because of health issues, I kept thinking that I didn't have that much trouble when I was born (at least from what I've been told - not too surprisingly, I don't remember much (if anything) from then myself). However, near the end of the book, Nuala lists how many weeks early Socra Marie was born, and I realized that she was born more than twice as many weeks early as I was (15 weeks, compared to my 7); this quite likely is the reason behind the difference. I was quite angry with the couple Nuala and Dermot were talking with at this point in the story - they told the two of them that they should have treated Socra Marie as a stillbirth/miscarriage and not continued fighting for her life (despite the fact that Socra Marie was fighting on her own for her life). The doctors had also suggested this to them at the beginning of the book, but there was something in particular about the way this couple said it that really bothered me. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that Socra Marie was more six months old and was doing quite well - in some ways better than full-term babies her age.

I tried to move to one of the books I'd had on hold at the library that came in for me pretty much right after finishing this one, but between the extreme difference in theme and tone, and the Radio City Christmas Spectacular on tv I just couldn't get into it. A few hours later, I had no trouble and am now over 1/4 the way through it - almost 1/3 finished. I'm reading Dan Brown's newest book The Lost Symbol. I'm interested enough in this, and Dad would like to read it as well, so I'm going to finish this instead of watching those other shows, so that I can find out what happens and Dad can finish it before it's due back in two weeks. Briefly at the beginning (mostly) it reminded me of National Treasure. I am intrigued by the research that Katherine Solomon is doing in the book - I may have to look into it, if I can. It could be interesting to read any studies from it.