Reading

So, what I've been reading lately (besides theology!) . . .

I have always loved American History. I stumbled across a series on Ulysses S. Grant on the history channel some time ago and became interested in him. I have read a lot about the Civil War in the East, but didn't know much about the Western campaign, or Grant. So I asked for this biography for Christmas and finished it up right before Lent.

It is a large book, over 1000 pages and the print is small, but some of that is notes. Overall, I really enjoyed the book. Chernow is a good writer. The sections on the western campaign during the war were good, but what I learned the most about was southern reconstruction after the War. This was one of Chernow's stated goals - to educate about that oft neglected area of history. It actually helped me not only to understand that era of our history, but to understand some of what is happening today in our country. Another thing I was struck by was how trusting a soul Grant was, and how that often got him into trouble - not militarily, but with his personal life, businesses he tried to run, and with his presidency. So, if you like American History or want to learn more about Grant and/or the Civil War, I would recommend this book.

One of the next books I read was quite different than that - a fun little novel, The Haunted Bookshop. I noticed it on our bookshelf. It was my mother's book and had her bookplate on the inside cover. It is an old book, so fun to read for the style of writing and the vocabulary. It's not long, so a quick read too. However, While I enjoyed most of it, I was disappointed by the ending - not so much how it ended, but that the ending was so abrupt. It reminded me of books that my children would read in elementary school, like the Magic Tree House books. You'd get to the end and everything would be explained, and to a pre-teen mind, it was probably all good. But for this book, I wish he had added about 75-100 pages at least, fleshed out the plot some more, and finished it up better. So not bad. A nice diversion while riding my bike. I don't read a lot of fiction, so it was a good change for me.

So then I decided to read some more fiction! This is the book I am currently reading, The Decameron, by Boccaccio. I bought this book some time ago and had read part of it before, but never the whole thing. Why did I think of this book now? Because the dog in The Haunted Bookshop was named Bock after Boccaccio! 

The premise of the book is that there is an epidemic - a highly contagious disease killing people in great numbers. (Sound familiar?) So ten young people (seven young women and four young men) get out of the city and cloister themselves in the country, away from the death and sadness to enjoy life. While they are there, they decide to tell stories to entertain themselves. This book is ten stories told per day for ten days - each person telling one story per day. I am not too far into the book yet - I've only finished the first day. But the stories are short and amusing. It is an old book, from 14th century Italy, so the times were quite different than today. But really, our human nature is not so different. I'm looking forward to reading the next 90 stories told!

 Finally, the last book I'll include here is Plato's Republic. Yeah, that's a bit of a change from the other books, huh! I had never read it before, but did now because we are probably going to enroll my daughter in a private Lutheran Classical education school and this is an important text for that. This is a difficult read (at least it was for me), but the general premise of the book is easy to grasp. It probably would have been easier for me if I wasn't exercising while reading it, but one only has so much time in the day! So now that I've read through it once, I'll probably go read some explanations of it and then read it again to digest it a bit more. But not right away - I'm reading my fun Decameron first, and then who knows what I'll feel like delving into after that?