I have one more workweek before I'm on vacation for the rest of the year. I'm working double-time to get everything done before I head home. Add to that all the Christmas prep, I'm feeling that old holiday stress. But the thought of two weeks off to read and spend time with family makes up for it.
Most of my end-of-year posts will go up in late December or in January. Something just had to give.
Last week I finished:
I'd had my eye on A Thousand Hills to Heaven since it came out in 2013. And having such a hard time lately settling on a book, I chose this off the TBR shelf. Unfortunately, this is another of those books that misrepresents itself with its subtitle. "Love, Hope, and a Restaurant in Rwanda" to me indicated it would be the story of a couple who open a restaurant in Rwanda. This is really more the story of relief aid workers Josh Ruxin and his wife Alissa who have spent time exacting change in the world's most destitute places. Ruxin is tasked with opening health care centers in Rwanda's worst area, and toward the end of the book, his wife opens a restaurant called Heaven there (while having and raising three children). But the book is really about the need for aid and relief work in Africa. It's not really about a restaurant. Do not get me wrong, the work these two and their team have done is wonderful, needed, and sacrificial; they do it with an open heart with an eye toward self-sufficiency and dignity rather than dependence on an unsustainable model. It's just that I was there for the restaurant, not the UN-y chat about the need for more money and workers and better practices. And if I were to read a book about foreign relief workers, I'd choose one that was Christian-based. Starving bodies is not necessarily the root of the devastation, in my opinion. Other than feeling blindsided, I enjoyed the book. It wasn't really very preachy. It was a positive portrayal, a very hopeful book. I did wonder though, if Rwanda's current state was being whitewashed. Surely it's not so perfect as it would seem by Ruxin's descriptions. What did strike me though, and will stay with me long after finishing the book, is how the Rwandans healed as a nation after the 1994 genocide. It's nearly impossible for Americans to understand the set of events that led one group (Hutus) to turn on the other (Tutsis) which no one could tell apart (Hutus were given addresses of Tutsis to kill based on government records) and kill one million of their own. I think the American mind, which cannot fathom such a thing, just wants to "let Africa take care of Africa" when they think about this. If Ruxin's description is correct, the country did an unbelievable job healing the pain of the genocide and forgiving the atrocities done to them by their neighbors. It's really quite remarkable. If you're interested in present-day Africa and relief work going on there, I recommend this book. My rating: 3 stars.
And quite by chance, another book about Africa. The Kalahari Typing School for Men is the fourth in Alexander McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. In this book, Mma Makutsi decides to open a typing school for men to earn extra money, and she ends up falling in love with one of her students. Mma Ramotswe is working on a case that would allow a man to right past wrongs. And Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni learns to be a more involved foster father when his foster son starts acting up. It's as good as the others, and I can't wait to listen to the rest. Luckily, I won't run out of them any time soon! My rating: 4 stars.
Last week I began:
Next up for my "main" book is In a French Kitchen, which I would read for the cover alone.
I also began Dear Fahrenheit 451, which, in spite of the swearing throughout, is a wonderful read. It's a set of letters the librarian/author, Annie Spence, writes to books she loves, loathes, or is weeding from the library. A great one for book nerds.
This week I continue with:
My Antonia is one of those books that I never want to pick up, but when I do, I love reading. It's a somber book, much like the prairie in the homesteading days, I imagine, but I like its easy writing.
I'm making slow progress with If Bees Are Few, but not because I don't like it. So far, I don't think I've run across a poem I know.
My next audiobook:
Dana Perino recommended the Maggie Hope mystery series, one that I'd been interested in but never started. I'll listen to the first book, Mr. Churchill's Secretary, and see what I think.
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