I must say I had a pretty perfect week in the country. No internet, no worries, just a pile of books in front of the fireplace with good food, good wine and good friends. Among other things, I cooked bread, reszegbab
(drunken beans), polenta/puliska, fried pumpkin slices in beer/cumin batter, and lentil soup. Christmas day we went on a hike in a big snowstorm, starting and ending in the lovely village of Egerszog. About 20cm of snow fell all told making the roads dangerous but the area gorgeous.

I think I have read Larry Niven's Ringworld before, but if so, I still enjoyed it. I do not think I have ever found book 2 Ringworld Engineers. Of the more interesting observations in the book, there is this, "The gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by bigger fools."

Another probably re-read was George MacDonald Frasier's Flashman and the Tiger.I still very much enjoy these historical fiction series.

White Crow by Mary Gentle is a massive 850 pages with many similarities to her very good Ash. Based on Ash, I sought out other books by Gentle, but White Crow's basic plot and main character are far too similar to Ash. Furthermore, I could not fathom most of the details and I was left feeling stupid and still have no idea what the book was about. It is a wonder I stuck with it and finished it.

Nation is sadly sure to be one of Terry Pratchett's last books. In a book targeted for the young adult market, he again deftly writes about issues of race and tolerance this time in a background of a tsunami disaster.

The surprise of the week was Gregory Maguire's Wicked, the story of Oz from the perspective of the Wicked Witch of the West. I remember being intrigued by the book when it came out and it took me many years to track down a copy. Wicked follows in the tradition of such pioneering work in the genre, Grendel (Beowulf) by John Gardner, and The Madwoman in the Attic (Jane Eyre) by ? The first 50 or so pages are boring and badly written, though necessary background. I have never read the original Frank L. Baum books, but the flying monkeys in the movie Wizard of Oz scare the bejeezus out of me to this day. Wicked explains many of the details left out of the original and flips the tale on its head and every which way. Inventing, or fleshing out the skeletal world of Baum, it also tackles serious issues of evil, tolerance, race, tyranny, religion and religious strife, and family. I can certainly see other opportunities to expand this series. Now I would like to know the outcome after the Wizard leaves Oz, the Wizard's perspective, the fate of the Animals, and how did the tiktok creatures come to be? Macguire also has a couple more books out in this vein, including Mirror, Mirror and Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister.

As usual, a lot of wine was consumed, of which two stand out. There was a very nice Portugeiser from the Jekl Vineyard which surprisingly and thankfully had none of the usual raw beef tones. The other was a bottle found in the back office of Lazar u. wrapped in an old Financial Times with my name on it. God knows how long it has been there or how it got there. Can anyone clear up the mystery so I can thank someone? The L'esprit de Begude Pinot Noir 2006 had a very strong black cherry aroma and heavier body than expected from its slightly lighter color. And surprise, surprise, it was organic. Domaine Begude is a 29 hectare family-owned historic estate set high in the foothills of the Pyrenees in the Limoux region of the Languedoc. The vineyard was established in the late 16th century.