Summer Reading

With all that we have going on at our house, I've found it's so easy to let reading fall by the wayside. My schedule at work means that I come home each night and fall into bed. I like to read before going to bed, but when sleep is at a premium I feel my time is best spent asleep.

But for whatever reason I have been ripping through books like crazy lately. I started with Ernest Hemingway's A Movable Feast and then took up For Whom the Bell Tolls. My most recent literary conquest was Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna.

I am a huge fan of her work. If you've not picked up her titles The Poisonwood Bible or Prodigal Summer, please do so ASAP. They are well worth your time. Now back to The Lacuna. It's a hefty novel at more than 500 pages, but I read it in less than a week. She had me from the first page. It's a fascinating book that includes actual historical characters such as Trotsky, Diego Rivera, and Frida Khalo. A good portion of the story takes place in Mexico and the backdrop it provides is beyond compare. The colors, the people, the food, the landscape....all play a vital role in the story. My favorite part of Harrison Shepherd's tale was his time on Isla Pixol. Kingsolver's descriptions are so vivid that I could have been sitting on the beach watching Shepherd dive.

I wish I had known a little more Spanish before diving into this book. There were some portions that I could sort out on my own, but I did feel lost on a few passages. Overall it was an excellent read and one I will perhaps re-visit in the not too distant future. I was so eager to have the story spin out before me that I found myself glossing over some passages, which I later had to go back and re-read in detail. I loved learning more about a time in history I confess to be quite ignorant about. And there's no better way to learn than learning it under the guise of a good read. This was one of those books I was sad to see come to a close. I've moved on to my next book but I am mourning the loss of The Lacuna. I keep comparing it to the next book on my nightstand and the new read just isn't quite measuring up.