I picked up Ms. Hempel by accident in an aiport bookstore, one of many I randomly flipped through to see if it was worth adding to my book ordering list. Two pages later Hempel and Chronicles were scratched on my list and I was out the door to eat one more box of sushi before heading home to the land of pricey raw fish.

Those two pages stuck with me though, and as they called boarding for the flight back to Prague, I dashed to the store and bought the book, reading it in one terrific lump between Maine and Iceland. Its beautiful writing rounded out my trip for me - my one week away from children and computers; a week full of family visits, shopping, sightseeing and lots and lots of reading.