Went to Ruka for some downhill skiing with my folks over easter and had a great time. I retried telemark style after many years of concentrating on polishing my alpine technique and found it very invigorating. The kind of joy I hadn't for years experienced on Finnish slopes (preferring the Alps) was there as sharp as ever. Also, the naturalness of the free-heel turn caught me by surprise. I'm sold, I have to buy a set.

The thing that kept me occupied after a hard day of sliding down the fell was D. B. Weiss's debut novel Lucky Wander Boy, a book that left my head spinning for hours. LWB is a nerd book that doesn't glorify nerds but also a prime example of postmodern fiction that starts off very innocently and ends somewhere out there. Outwardly a straightforward story in three acts, the bulk of the book is just a well-disguised buildup to an out-of-the-box conclusion. Read it, please.