Time to read, but no time to write

Since my last blog entry, I've read 8 or 9 books, but haven't been able to find the time to write down my thoughts. Since I sit at a computer all day long at work, and often at home as well when I have freelance stuff to do, finding time to write for myself is, at times, next to impossible. Garrett says I could take my computer with me on the train and write on my way to work, but that would cut into my reading time! So for now, I'm just going to list the books with few comments:

I just finished Confections of a Closet Master Baker by Gesine Bullock-Prado (Sandra Bullock's sister). Gesine left her high-powered job as a Hollywood executive to open a bakery in Vermont... sort of my fantasy (except I don't have a high-powered job and I'm way too lazy to open a bakery). I enjoyed the book, but didn't love it as much as I'm sure I would love all of the treats for which she provided recipes.

Before that I read Strength in What Remains, by Tracy Kidder. Kidder is such a master at finding interesting people to write about, in this case Deo, a young man who escaped the genocide in Burundi to start over in the United States. Deo's story is terrible and inspiring. Kidder does an amazing job of telling that story and also conveying Deo's quest to understand why the genocide happened by studying philosophy at Columbia of all things. I was particularly impressed with Kidder's journey trying to understand Deo's experience.

I imagined him sitting late at night in one of Butler Library's twenty-four-hour study rooms, poring over the likes of Kant and Hume and Plato, his favorite of all the philosophers he read, looking for a means to close the gap between what he'd experienced and what he was able to say, looking for something reliable in a world that had become untrustworthy, looking for some sort of structured belief, some grand encyclopedia with an index in which he could look up "genocide" and learn where it fit in the universe.

In preparation for our recent trip to Belize, I read The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw: One Woman's Fight to Save the World's Most Beautiful Bird by Bruce Barcott. It was a great introduction to the politics (read: corruption) of this tiny democracy, although our guide, Basilio, said he thought it was exaggerated. Anyway, it inspired us to get up at 4:30 a.m. one morning to go hiking in Red Bank so we could see these magnificent birds. It was worth it.

The other book I took with me to read in Belize was The Road Home by Rose Tremain. I was so excited that one of her books was available on the Kindle, because I have loved all of her books that I've read. And I loved this one too. No one can match her when it comes to writing great, fully realized characters. Lev is a widower who leaves his home, his daughter, and his mother in some Eastern bloc country because he can't get work to support them. He struggles to make a go of it in London, experiencing both successes and failures, and finding both friendship and adversity. But he's basically a good man, and he ultimately prevails.

That's all for now. I still have all the pre-Belize books to write about!