LAST NIGHT IN MONTREAL by Emily St. John Mandel

Seven year old Lilia had not seen her father in years; then one night, he comes to her Montreal home in the dead of night, takes her in his arms and disappears with her.  They become wanderers, never staying anywhere for long.   In hotel bedside bibles, Lilia writes "I am not missing. Stop searching for me. I wish to remain vanishing. I don't want to go home."
Christopher Graydon is the private detective hired by Lilia's mother to find her.  He becomes obsessed with the case to the point of ignoring his own daughter,  Michaela who is Lilia's age.  Eli lives in New York and is working on his graduate thesis; the topic is dying languages.  Lilia's latest stop was with Eli.  One day, Lilia goes out for the coffee and never returns.

Lilia ends up in Montreal and meets Michaela who then sends Eli a postcard to come and get her. But Michaela refuses to tell Eli exactly where Lilia is until he fills in the blanks about her own father and his relationship with Lilia.

I really enjoyed this book.  The narrative is told from a number of viewpoints - each adding yet another layer to a rich and complex story.  The characters felt real - each with their virtues and each with their flaws.  Discussion about Eli's graduate thesis - on dying languages was fascinating and made me want to research this topic further.  The author nailed the feeling of Montreal in the winter.  This is not a long book, but I suspect I will remember it for a long time.  I am eager to read other works by this author.

TULIPOMANIA - The story of the world's most coveted flower and the extraordinary passions it aroused

When economists need to summon an age of unchecked speculation and financial fecklessness, the Dutch tulip mania is at the top of the list. If you’re not familiar with the story, it’s an early example of the vagaries of the stock market.  In the mid-1630s, the Dutch fell in love with tulips. The flower became a status symbol, and the Dutch were all but tripping over each other in a race to conspicuously consume. To satisfy burgeoning demand, speculators began to trade in what were essentially tulip futures; these grew outlandishly complicated and expensive, and on the third of February, 1637, the tulip market collapsed.

The book begins with a history of the origins and cultivation of the tulip in the Ottoman Empire and how it came to be introduced in the Netherlands by botanist Carolus Clusius, who established an extensive garden at the University of Leiden. 

The demand for tulips of a rare species increased so much in the year 1636, that regular markets for their sale were established on the Stock Exchange of Amsterdam, in Rotterdam, Harlaem, Leyden, Alkmar, Hoorn, and other towns.   The tulip-jobbers speculated in the rise and fall of the tulip stocks.  People of all grades converted their property into cash, and invested it in flowers. Houses and lands were offered for sale at ruinously low prices, or assigned in payment of bargains made at the tulip-mart.

This book was an interesting story of botany and greed and what can happen when the latter triumphs.