My wife participates in book discussions with friends every once in a while. It can't really be called a book club, it is much too informal for that. Someone picks a book to read, then they meet for breakfast or lunch to talk about it.

School is finally over for me. This makes it possible to participate as well, and we had a gathering to talk about the latest book called The Meaning of Everything by Simon Winchester. How this book made it into the discussion is interesting in itself. One of the ladies picked a book by the same author called The Madman And The Professor (or is it The Professor and the Madman?). Well, she discussed the choice with another woman in the group, and this woman got it confused with the first book, The Meaning of Everything, and spread it around that this was the book to read. The ensuing controversy over the matter piqued my interest, so I decided to get them both and listen.

The gathering was interesting; most of the discussion centered on the confusion rather than the book itself. The first written was about the professor, one James Murray, and a madman, Dr W C Minor, and their correspondence concerning The Oxford English Dictionary in the late 1800s. The second written later was about getting the Dictionary itself into print. I won't bother with details, a search will bring up plenty of information about both books and the subject.

Right now I'm in the middle of Three Cups of Tea by David Relin. The book is about one Greg Mortenson and his ordeal installing buildings for children in remote regions of Pakistan, starting with a village called Korphe (pronounced kor-fey). I picked this up after a recommendation by someone I work with.

Along with that, I'm listening to Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. This is the next book for the discussion group. I read it many years ago but remember little. The writing is pretty basic, but it was his first published work. In spite of that the story is a good one most of the time, and it won awards and has spawned many books that detail the further adventures of the characters. I tried reading some of these, but couldn't get through them. This is usually the case with serial books of this type, for me anyway.