Where Has the Time Gone?

          Oh my, has it really been that long?  I am afraid my neglect has partially been due to blogger issues.  When I previously tried to change the side lists to properly reflect what we were reading it would not let me.  But things seem to be working again, so now I can get things up to date!

          We finished up Huck Finn, it was quite the trip.  Traveling down the Mississippi via raft can lead to many scrapes, close calls, and crazy adventures.  After concluding that book, we deviated from reading just one novel and opted for several short stories by Ernest Hemingway, and also several by F. Scott Fitzgerald.  Two incredible writers with drastically different styles, yet their choice of death, tragedy, and sadness as favorite topics made them very compatible reading companions.

          Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame was our lighthearted antidote, but do not be fooled into thinking it is merely a children’s story; in fact, I would argue that Toad is a very poor example and you should warn young readers to beware of the devious amphibian.  Our book club loved the writing style, very proper English, especially compared to the southern-vernacular writing style used by Mark Twain.  At times, we doubted they were speaking English at all!

          As of this week, we finished up A Year in Provence, a memoir by Peter Mayle sharing, as the title so clearly states, about his first year living in France.  A very enjoyable read, but I should warn you not to read this on an empty stomach, for anything and everything seems to center on food and the author kindly shares the sights, smells, and tiny details of countless feasts.  Our next book, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, will take us out of cozy reading into a very different type of literature -- a much deeper, darker kind of literature . . . dun, dun, dun!

         Well, I think that covers everything so far.  I intend to be much more on top of our little literary place in future.   Till next time, keep on reading!