Thomas Shield is a school­mas­ter in Regency England who becomes entangled in the affairs of the Frant and Carswell families, as tutor to the Frant boy and his friend Edgar Allan. Old Mr. Carswell is a domestic tyrant and the former business partner of Mr. Frant. Frant swindles his own bank and is found murdered; the beautiful Mrs. Frant becomes indebted to Carswell.

Shield slowly, almost un­wit­ting­ly untangles what really happened while he is drawn to both Mrs. Frant and Carswell’s il­le­git­i­mate daughter. Edgar Allan, who will one day be …continue.

I’ve appointed myself as Frank’s electronic executor. He had an active online life, spending over 20 years in Usenet newsgroups and selling hundreds of pieces of vintage costume jewelry on eBay.

We had a dry run for this in October, after he’d been in hospital for a month. The need to deal with his eBay customers had grown pressing. Lyndol is not tech­ni­cal­ly savvy and was unable to handle it. I had to work out how to get into his eBay, PayPal, and email accounts. For­tu­nate­ly, I was able to phone Frank in the hospital and ask him. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, he had forgotten many of the passwords and I had to use …continue.

Terry Pratchett was diagnosed with a rare form of early onset Alzheimer’s in 2007. For­tu­nate­ly, it’s not evident in this Discworld book.

Moist von Lipwig, con man ex­tra­or­di­naire, finds himself in charge of the Royal Bank of Ankh-Morpork and the Royal Mint. The people don’t trust the banks much. In an effort to get money flowing, he introduces paper money to Ankh-Morpork. Lipwig, like his creator, is an acute observer of people, and pulls it off against the odds.

Pratchett does his usual trick of holding a fun-house mirror up to some aspect …continue.

On Wednesday, I ac­com­pa­nied Lyn to the People’s Memorial Funeral Co­op­er­a­tive on Capitol Hill to make the arrange­ment for Frank’s cremation.

Years ago, I read Jessica Mitford’s The American Way of Death Revisited and it left me with an even lower opinion of the funeral industry than I already had.

I had never made any funeral arrange­ments before. It turned out to be both painless and in­ex­pen­sive. The funeral director sat down with us and gathered in­for­ma­tion for the death cer­tifi­cate that the doctor was unable to provide, such as parents’ names and other personal details. Initially, we put down “Software Doc­u­menter” as Frank’s oc­cu­pa­tion—his final job had been a ten-year stint at Microsoft as …continue.

My nephew’s name is Harold Mark Bowles, to be known as Harry. I assume the Mark is after my brother. No idea about the Harold/Harry.

I said before that my mother was very excited at becoming a grand­moth­er. Here’s the proof: take a look at the huge smile on her face.

On Christmas Day, she was trying to decide what her new title was to be. She was really pleased at becoming a granny, but not at all eager to be known as “Granny”. She tried out “Nan Et” (Et for Ethna), which we promptly turned into “Nanette”. “Gran Et” was even worse: with a strong Dublin accent it becomes “Granite”. She …continue.

I wrote three weeks ago, that Frank’s time was limited. He died yesterday at 3am of liver failure. He had been un­con­scious since Saturday, and he had been moved to a hospital bed in his living room on Thursday.

I was at a coffee shop near work yesterday morning when Emma called me to relay the news from Lyndol. We hurried over there and spent the rest of the day with him, helping out as various friends came over.

Lyn is doing as well as can be expected. He’s sad, oc­ca­sion­al­ly weepy, and sometimes a little manic. I think he’s relieved that Frank’s ordeal is over. After 32 years together, it’s going to …continue.

David B just emailed me a handful of cam­er­a­phone photos of his wife and son. I like this one the best.

[Edit: This one is actually from my brother David, not my brother-in-law David. I’m telling you, one of them’s got to go: it’s just too confusing.]

At 12:44am Monday (Irish Time), Michelle gave birth to a 9lb 8oz boy. Mother and son are healthy but exhausted. I’m not sure quite how long the actual labor lasted; but I think she started late on Saturday.

My nephew is, as yet, unnamed. David and Michelle have yet to find a boy’s name that both of them really like. Under Irish law, they have three months to do so, but Michelle hopes to pick a name within a few days at most.

[Update: they named him Harry.]

Rozan weaves together two stories here, past and present.

Seven children, four boys and three girls, grow up together on Staten Island in the 1960s and 70s. In early adulthood, one of the young men ac­ci­den­tal­ly kills another, then is killed in prison. A third boy, Jimmy McCaffrey, becomes estranged from the others and moves to Manhattan where he rises in the Fire Department.

Jimmy dies in the Twin Towers on 9/11, doing what he did best: saving people. A month later, a washed-up newspaper reporter writes a story in­sin­u­at­ing that there was …continue.

This book takes place about ten years after A Meeting at Corvallis. The focus has switched to a younger set of characters, the first generation to grow up after the “Change”, the event that knocked the world back into the Dark Ages.

A traveler arrives in Oregon from the East, bearing a compelling prophecy that requires Rudi Mackenzie to travel to Nantucket, the apparent source of the Change. A group of nine (the number is tra­di­tion­al) head eastwards. But the fanatical Church Universal and Triumphant wants to stop them.

Plenty of …continue.