Good Reads: In the Garden of Beasts

Good  Reads aren't always light and happy. One that I read this summer was In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Lawson. His work is nearly always historical fiction. The first of his I read was called Isaac's Storm about the deadliest hurricane ever to hit Galveston. Next I read Devil in a White City which is the story of the building of the Chicago World's Fair along with the story of a physician/serial killer who was operating there at the same time. In the Garden of Beasts is the story of William Dodd, who becomes America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Germany, and his family in 1933, a year that proved to be a turning point in history. It is informative, not uplifting but well told.

If you want to know more about America's response to these events. I recommend this one.

Good Reads: Lot's of Candles, Plenty of Cake

I think I like this one a lot because I have a lot in common with Anna Quindlen. I won't go into the details here because frankly it's more than I care to share on a public blog. If you ever wonder, you can ask me personally.

This book made me laugh, starting with the title. She calls it her memoirs but really it seems to me to be a series of essays about life and growing older. My book group read it and I think I truly liked it the best of anyone, maybe because I am closer in age to the author or have more in common with her. Whatever, we don't always like the same things.

She discusses a lot of things, including Stuff (something we all have too much of), Girlfriends (who are indispensable), Solitude (which would serve us all (You have no new messages)) well, Next of Kin (that's our folks), Faith (which hit home with me) and the best To Be Continued because we are in the best place right now, right here and let's get as much of this life as we possibly can.

Read it and laugh. Read it and think. Read it and understand. Or not. I loved it!