my reading list

I have finished two books since leaving Gainesville: Mother without a Mask and Growing Up Fast. I brought lots of wonky books to read which will be helpful in my job but of course I started with these. Both were very good and I would highly recommend them.

Mother without a Mask is about a British woman (actually she´s American but lives in England) who befriends a Sheikh family in the United Arab Emirates and she becomes like a second mom to their children. The book is about all kinds of cultural UAE details and it was really fascinating as I observed many of them myself when I traveled there this past spring.

The other book, Growing Up Fast, which I finished today, is about teenage pregnancy in Pittsfield, where I grew up. I actually knew a few of the service providers personally. It really set the context of the economically depressed area and how it impacted the futility of the situation. The relationship with GE and the city was a backdrop to the entire story and it makes a lot of sense to me to read it in a book rather than having lived through the decline in jobs, population, and economic opportunity. Apparently there is a documentary video which I will have to see called Good Things to Life: GE, PCB´s, and Our Town.

I also am on a social networking site called GoodReads which allows you to sign up and share with your friends your reviews of various books, what you´ve read, and what you are currently reading, and planning to read. Jill and Joe gave me some flak about not liking Life of Pi--it was stupid! But I appreciated Berri´s comments about Dean Koontz book better. If you are interested in getting on it, let me know and I´ll send you the invite.