Jim is on his annual summer family vacation, which, as usual, involves some corner of New England (this year it's slated to be Massachusetts and Vermont). One of the pleasures it affords, in addition to the structured opportunity for leisure activity with friends and loved ones, is the chance to catch up on reading that's not work-related, in particular books that have slipped through the cracks amid a teaching/writing/reviewing regimen. This year, that means the opportunity to finally get to at least one of the three books in Stieg Larsson's celebrated "Milennium trilogy," featuring the mysterious Lisabeth Salander and her sidekick, Mickael Blomkvist, two investigators of civic corruption. Larsson, who never lived to see the global phenomenon his work has become (after being rejected by multiple publishers, the books have sold nearly 30 million copies) is clearly a master of the thriller genre.

Best to all for a relaxing respite as the intimations of summer's end emerge over the calendrical horizon. Future posts in this site will include a new book about the ancient Carthaginian empire, the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, and a continuation of the "Sensing the Past" series on the work of Jodie Foster as historian.