SRP

Book 5. The City of Falling Angels, John Berendt, audiobook approximately 13 hours. This is John Berendt's follow up to Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Mr. Berendt traveled to Venice where he lived for some time shortly after the Venetian opera house, the Fenice, had burned. If you liked Midnight, you will probably enjoy this book as well, both non-fiction works are told in the same manner, vignettes of "local" citizen's lives (in The City, the "locals" are largely ex-pats) with a shocking crime serving as the thread that ties the book together. Like Midnight, The City is also a non-fiction work, filled with colorful characters that most people would never know. While I enjoyed Midnight better, The City of Falling Angels was an interesting peak into ex-pat Venice.

Book 6. Tea Addiction, Exploitation, and Empire, Roy Moxham 252 pages (plus appendix). A fascinating book detailing the history of the British relationship with Tea, as drinkers, importers, and growers. Personally, I prefer drinking tea to coffee, but after reading this book, I feel guilty about drinking tea. The tea growers/plantation workers have been horribly abused throughout out history and have been working for next to no money. I think I am going to have to find some "fair trade" tea from now one. I had no idea that the British were so evil with their tea empire, but they were. I had heard of the Opium Wars before, but never really learned much about them, so I was stunned to learn that the crux of the war was that the British wanted to make sure that the Chinese couldn't keep opium exports out of China.

On the sock front I finished Widdershin 1. I changed my needle size for the leg due to sizing concerns and I think that the larger needles and changed striping have actually made the pattern more noticeable, so the second sock will probably be upsized from this one, though I probably won't use a size 3 needle like I used on this leg. I started in on a mate for my Baudelaire sock too, though I only started late last night, so it isn't picture worthy yet.