March Book Update

I feel like I didn't read many books in March, or maybe that's just because it took a long time to get through some of them.

• Apples to Oysters - Margaret Webb. This was a 'cross-Canada' tour of food and farms. It featured one main ingredient from 10 of the provinces/territories. There was interviews with farmers, recipes and other things. It wasn't my favourite book (she was a bit too sexual about it all), but it was interesting to read about food.
  
• Carnevale - M.R. Lovric. This was recommended to me by a friend, and (sorry S!), I have to say, it wasn't something that I would read again. It took me a while to get into, and some parts were just weird. I'm sure others would love it, but it wasn't my fav.
  
• I am Half-Sick of Shadows - Alan Bradley. Fourth? in the Flavia de Luce series. Again, a super fast read. Sometimes those are necessary.
  
• Deja Dead - Kathy Reichs. Lent to me by a coworker. Super fast to read, Patricia Cornwell style book. I did enjoy it, and there were actually parts of it that made me scared.
  
• Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet - Jamie Ford. Favourite book of the month. This book took place in Seattle at the end of WWII, and in the late 1980's. It was one of those books that switched back and forth between past and present. It told an amazing tale of friendship between a Chinese-American and a Japanese-American, during the time when the Japanese were shipped to camps to ensure that they weren't spies. Very, very well written.
  
• The Black Dahlia - James Ellroy. This book took me a long time to get into. I believe that it is a fictional story, based on the true story of a murder in the late 1940's in LA. I didn't enjoy the author's style of writing very much, and some of it was confusing. By the end, I was more interested, but it took a lot longer than normal. 

Hike: Diez Vistas

First hike of 2012! Today D, A, R and I went to Buntzen Lake, in Coquitlam. We opted for the Diez Vistas (10 views) trail, because it only had about 500m of elevation gain, rather than the 1200m for some of the other hikes around.

Total length: 15km
Time: 6 hours

 

One of the many views. Looking down Indian Arm towards Vancouver.

 Another view towards Vancouver.

 Looking down at North Vancouver, with Deep Cove near the center.

Another lovely view. After these few views, the rest weren't quite as nice. Too many trees grew in.

This hike was a bit brutal at the start (mostly because it was the first hike of the year, and uphill for quite a while). The forests were gorgeous though, and well worth it. After some switch-backing, the top along the ridge was easy walking and really nice, with of course, ten views. It was pretty busy, in that we probably saw 20 people on the Diez hike, and probably 100 around the Buntzen Lake side.