PS

I have nothing but horror about ebooks, I must confess, and don't get John started on the princples of making people pay to own something but not letting them share it...

But on a brighter note, John read (we shared a copy...) "The Tenderness of Wolves" on holiday while I read Bryson and absolutely loved it. I re-read most of it whenever he put it down and it was far, far better than I remembered. I take back my mark of 7.5 and award it 9 or even 9.5 and am now firmly persuaded (by my experience as well as by John) that it did not in fact need cutting. He had some very interesting views on why the seemingly extraneous stuff was in fact germane and on some of the mysteries we'd identified in reading group. Happy to expand if anyone wants. Helen, should you find yourself wanting to read a book we've read already but not too long ago, I can heartily recommend this and am sure you'd thoroughly enjoy it.