I read two novels while I was at Ste. Anne's spa. This doesn't happen often because usually the books that are left in the minuscule "library" (read: three bookshelves) are New Age, think-beautiful-thoughts or meditate-for-a-longer-life kind of thing. But I found two novels by Willa Cather (1873-1947), (pron. gather - I'm telling you because I didn't know). I think I had read one or two short stories by Cather and had always meant to read her. After all, she won the Pulitzer Prize (in 1922, for "One of Ours"), and I've always known the title, but not the pronunciation of her novel, "My Ántonia" (1918). See that accent on the Á? You emphasize that as if you're saying "Anthony" and then end up with i-a each getting emphasis.

Well. So. I read "Lucy Gayheart" (1935) first, then "My Ántonia", and enjoyed them both. Cather's writing reminded me a little of Isaak Dinesen's style, with its precision and generosity, but it's much more dedicated to landscape and weather, which she describes beautifully. Then I came across her name after I came home, reading the New York Times book section, where a critic commented, in a review of someone else, that Cather's writing was ageless, that is, not exclusive to a certain age category. That's a good thing. I don't like sticking writers in a ghetto, as if they appealed only to a certain age and no one else should or could appreciate their work. I like to be eclectic in my reading and I'm sure writers welcome a wide-ranging audience.

Well, you learn something every day. Thank goodness for Wikipedia.