Reading List

As I have in the past… a little about what we are reading after the day is done.

Alan has just finished Any Known Blood by Lawrence Hill. that is well traveled. Our daughter Pamela gave it to her grandfather last Christmas. I borrowed it this fall and read it while in Indiantown. As my father lives in Oakville six months a year it was fun to recognize some of the locations.

Any Known Blood follows five generations of an African-Canadian-American family in a compelling story that slips effortlessly from the slave trade of 19th-century Virginia to the modern, predominantly white suburbs of Oakville, Ontario—once a final stop on the Underground Railroad. Elegant and sensuous, wry and witty, it is an engrossing tale about one man’s attempt to find himself through unearthing and giving voice to those who came before him.

The hefty book I have completed is Madam Secretary – a memoir by Madeleine Albright.

The story begins with Albright's childhood as a Czechoslovak refugee, whose family first fled Hitler, then the Communists. Arriving in the United States at the age of eleven, she grew up to be a passionate advocate of civil and women's rights and followed a zigzag path to a career that ultimately placed her in the upper stratosphere of diplomacy and policy-making in her adopted country. She became the first woman to serve as America's secretary of state and one of the most admired individuals of our era.

I found this a fascinating look into the international negotiations of the US. The human touches like the messages she conveyed by the pins she wore, were what kept me reading though. Perhaps a bit sadly I found this 720 pp book on the shelves of a dollar store – a bargain.

I think I will move on to something less cerebral.

Today has been dull and windy with a series of rainy squalls blowing through. Alan has been trying to trace the problem with the autopilot with little success. I have been keeping his spirits up with Cranberry Hootycakes, corn muffins and pot roast.