Okay, back to books. I got hold of Under the Jolly Roger by L.A. Meyer, the third book in the Bloody Jack series. There had better be a fourth book! I learned a whole lot about the working of the Royal Navy during the blockade of France in 1804 (or thereabouts) and a lot about the British treatment of Irish common folk as well. I think I am learning to like historical fiction but it takes an irrepressible character like Mary "Jacky" Faber to keep me interested. Wait 'til you read what pickles she gets into in this book. I have to get this on audio book for the library.
Anyway, this book is for mature teens and adults. There are some "situations" (cough, cough) although Jacky manages to preserve her virtue throughout and there is some graphic violence as well. Hey, it was wartime and for half the book Jacky is in the Royal Navy.
Does anyone else have any ideas about Internet courses becoming a requirement for graduation from high school? Shadow's post opened my eyes. I have heard other people complaining that online courses are not as convenient as they sound. Is this the kind of expertise most people are going to need?
I certainly agree that there is more to life than sitting in front of a computer screen.

Back to books again. I am almost finished Kathleen Norris' Dakotah. She ends up revisiting ground she covered in Cloister Walk but she also gives a view of the emptiness of the western Dakotahs that is intriguing and forbidding at the same time. Norris' book may be controversial to Dakotans but to the rest of us it is a fresh look at the way geography can enrich one's spirituality and also at the way a person who is searching for God can find evidence anywhere.