And the Beat Goes On - Ian Rankin

A collection of John Rebus short stories from earlier and later in Rankin's career.  Interesting to see the evolution of the characters as Rebus and others take on more definite shapes and forms.  Not as rich and atmospheric as his novels, but still and enjoyable read.  At the end, there is an interesting short essay by Rankin on how he came to be writing the Rebus stories.  Interestingly, he says his original intent, his original focus was to write about the city of Edinburgh, and Rebus was more a convenient vehicle to get him into both the high life and the low life, and everything in between.

Stamboul Sketches, John Freely

A reread of a classic book on Istanbul from another time.  Always a pleasure to read the little gems of a now mostly disappeared Istanbul, and its people and social customs.  Similar wistful swan song to the books of Orhan Pamuk.  It has suffered the same losses as we in the west - breakdown of daily community ties, loss of the individual and growing social conformity, obsession with material goods as a definition of a life, loss of connection with the natural setting in which we live.  Freely actually explores a broader spectrum of loss than Pamuk, who focuses more on relations and physical environment.

The Architect's Apprentice, Elif Shafak

An interesting portrayal of Istanbul and the Turkish empire in the time of Suleyman and Sinan.  She humanizes many of the historical figures and explores the lives of the many different social stations of the time.  A good story, but a bit contrived in some parts.

Pastoral - Andre Alexis

First book in his philosophical series.  This one focuses on several issues:  nature of love, the idea of maturity, what is the good life, faith and religion vs. living fully in the world, the nature of miracles (supernatural or everyday).
Alexis also plays wonderfully with the pastoral genre:
- a shepherd is required; enter town priest
- life in a simpler, more rural setting; enter small town farming Ontario (complete with sheep)
- critique of corrupted urban life:  enter priest who moves to small town from Ottawa

Alexis is very clever and plays wonderfully with his ideas and form.

Digital Black and White Landscape Photography - Gary Wagner

A nicely done, technical but clear guide to working with RAW images and supporting software to create b & w images.  Built around examples of finished photos, with the various steps and software manipulations itemized.  Finished style worth learning for starters.

Other books to find again:

Camera Raw 101 - Jon Canfield  - thorough but software references may be a bit outdated

Compete Digital Photography - Ben Long

Camera Raw 101 - Jon Canfield

A focused guide to working with RAW images and the software you use.  Thorough but a bit dated. (2009)

Blood of the Celts - Jean Manco

A look at the origins of celtic languages and peoples.  A bit of a confusing narrative, I suppose because it is hard to pin anything down definitely in such remote periods.  The book does confirm the link between the bell beaker people/culture and the ancient celts.  Also their link with metal working, as you the the bell beaker culture jump from one locale to another, each locale a source of minerals for iron working in particular, rather than cover an entire large home area.  There does seem to be an original movement from the east, perhaps north of the Balkans to a homeland around Hallstat in southern Germany, but then the culture pops up all over Europe, even down into Italy at times.  There also seems to be some later movement from Spain back towards the original homeland.  Apart from that, it is hard to really get anything clearer from this book.
One surprising thing is that the genetic sequence of the European copper age population influx seems to originate around Lake Baikal in Siberia.  This genetic group is also related to North American native populations that seem to have spread across Beringia around the same time.