Well it's about time! With all the publicity about the new(?) book by Harper Lee I decided it was finally time to read TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. In the comfort of my house in Thailand I used the 3g feature in my Kindle to download it. WOW! Now I see what all the fuss is about. Better late than never...engaged me from the first page.
Before I left for Thailand a friend gave me KILLED AT THE WHIM OF A HAT, Colin Cotterill. It is a whimsical "who dunnit" set in Thailand. I've read several of his books which were the same genre but set in Laos. Part of the fun in reading them is references to Thai or Laotian places and customs with which I'm familiar and part of the delight was reading it while in Thailand.
Today the neighborhood book-club is gathering to discuss THE KITCHEN HOUSE, Kathleen Grissom, published in 2010 and a New York Times Bestseller. "A touching tale of oppressed women, black and white....[This novel] about love survival, friendship, and loss in the antebellum South should not be missed." The Boston Globe
The setting is a Virginia plantation in the turn of the 17th century. It is told through two voices, both female. One is Lavinia an Irish girl who lost both of her parents in the Atlantic crossing so she becomes an indentured servant on the plantation owned by the ship's captain. The other voice is Belle, who was the captain's daughter by a negro woman. They speak as if writing in a diary with alternating chapters. It gives a glimpse, albeit a powerful glimpse, of the brutality faced by slaves and also by white women in that time. I highly recommend it.
Now I'm going to read THOSE ANGRY DAYS: Roosevelt. Lindbergh, and America's Fight Over World War II, 1939-1941, Lynne Olson. This is the book, selected by the history book-club I just started, as the next book. I'll report on it later.
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