Book finished

The Undead Pool by Kim Harrison

★★★★★

This is IMO the best Hollows yet. I dislike it when long series like this turn into Gilligan's Island episodes where everything pretty much stays the same, the author afraid to let major changes happen in the universe.

Well, that's definitely not the case here. This book really shakes things up and I don't mind at all. I like where all of the characters are going. I like that Newt gets much more developed here. The changes that take place leave all the characters in a better emotional state too, and that's not a bad thing given the unrest most of them have been in for the last few books.

Mostly I like that it's a series where I actually care about the characters. That's become pretty rare lately.

(Oh, and definitely not the place to start if you're new to Hollows. Read them in order.)

[Purchased from Amazon 2/7/2015 - I don't know why it's priced at $1.99 but I'm not complaining]

Concert completed

The concert (of the Ann Arbor Cantata Singers) last night went pretty well. Everyone seemed happy with the results, though we had very little time really to do any polishing, we simply got to a pretty presentable version. I'd love to have had another couple of weeks to work on it, but on Tuesday it's on to whatever's next (and only a month to work on that one as well).

It was an all Brahms thing, there were two organ pieces, two solos, a quartet, a piano selection (our new pianist just got her degree in piano performance and played her defense set), then the choir did the Liebeslieder and finished with Taffelied.

I'm sort of thinking about getting upgraded recording equipment. That room is way too hot to just plant my Zoom H1 30 feet back and let it rip. I get mostly echo. The recording is OK but not something I'd probably want to listen to very much.