Patagonia, and The Love of Stones

In Tierra del Fuego, where it's cold, a little bit bleak and very beautiful. I love it here. Want to stay and stay.

I did have a reading plan for this trip that consisted of In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin, and Terra Incognita by Sara Wheeler (which I loved the first time around; I'm pretty sure she spends some time hanging around Ushuaia, where I am now). But as usual things were a bit frantic before I left so I just grabbed something of the to-be-read pile by my bed. The Love of Stones by Tobias Hill has turned out to be a great holiday read – a good page-turning thriller on the subject of jewels. It's vividly written, I'm liking the unexpected settings and the well-researched subject matter, I've never quite believed in the heroine, Katharine Sterne – a woman who has given up her life to her obsession with finding the jewel pictured – but that doesn't really matter. And towards the end, as she nears her goal, other sinister figures who have been tracing her efforts are moving in. I really don't know how things are going to turn out.

Here's a bit I liked

'I only knew him for six months before he went back to Canada. In the way such things happen in real life, I suspect I'll never see him again. We talked about that once. There was a term in Japanese, he said. Eng. It was both a concept and a word of advice. It meant that anyone you meet may be the most important person in your life. Therefore, that every stranger should be treated as a friend. Loved before it is too late. You never know (he said) in which night your ship is passing.'