Books on vacation

Luckily I only brought one Lee Child book with me on vacation, otherwise that's all I would have read. While that might have been okay, there is probably a limit to how much violence one person can take and I had no desire to explore that limit-I'll read them over Thanksgiving and Christmas, when it will annoy my sister because she doesn't like his books and when my relatives will make me want to kill someone.

So, I read Bad Luck and Trouble about old pals of Reacher's being killed him putting the old gang back together to find out who did it. Yes, these are bad guys who do really awful things and Reacher and his pals make them pay. Isn't that the case with all Reacher books? The thing is, Child is a great storyteller and the writing is really good. It's not great (and by that I mean it's not poetic) but it's far more than than just good. And I always want to know what happens next and how Reacher gets he and his friends out of a jam (usually at the last minute) which is why I can't start one now (I have a few left to read) because otherwise I will NEVER finish Anathem, Neal Stephenson's new doorstop of a book. It looks to be twice the size of one the Baroque Trilogy books and I really want to finish before Thanksgiving. We'll see.
I also got caught up on the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes books. I read The Beekeeper's Apprentice a few years ago and really liked it but I let the resulting sequels fall by the wayside, thinking they couldn't be as good. but The Game, where they go to India and meet up with the original Kim (you know, Rudyard Kipling's Kim, THAT Kim) was very good, The Moor, in which Holmes returns to The Hound of the Baskervilles (and gets a couple of really good lines off on Russell) and Locked Rooms, about Russell's return to San Francisco and the truth about the car accident that caused the death of parents and younger brother were all captivating.
next up was Alice Waters and Chez Panisse by Thomas McNamee. This is the story of how Alice started Chez Panisse, the drama and indulgence (I'm looking at you, Jeremiah Tower), the search for good simple food and the delicious revolution. It was fascinating. It was also interesting how Chez Panisse went from All Things French to great local food (I'm still baffled why the wine list has so many French wines, considering the location, but that's me). And don't get me wrong, I LOVE Chez Panisse. Every time I've gone, the food has been good from beginning to end. The people who work there are incredibly nice (and Jean-Pierre signed my menu!) and it's been wonderful each time-I still think about that sour-cherry crisp with vanilla ice cream-it was perfect.
I started Anathem on my way home and truth to tell it was hard to get into in the beginning. But so was Cryptonomicron, which I ended up loving, so I'm persevering. But I can't even start another Reacher book or bring one to work with me to read because if I do, Anathem will fall by the wayside and I'll never finish it. But I have a handful of Reachers to read, a couple more Mary Russelll books and a book about Chinese cooking. I need to finish Anathem soon.