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Ok...so did you think I had given up???? (Meade c'mon now...you CAN read this post.)

Well...nope. I just got hung up on one book.

I finished reading "The King of Mulberry Street." I didn't realize when I chose it is for young adults...so it ended up being a pretty easy read...but it was still really good. It was the story a Italian Jewish boy whose mom put him on a boat and sent him to America with this instruction: SURVIVE. (I could never never never do that.)

He was nine I think. And the condition of New York at that time for immigrants was of course horrible. I am beginning to understand that the sacrifice families made to find better lives was not so much in the leaving...but in the surviving the arrival. America isn't quite as shiny in its history as we think. Good book.

Then I read "Ella Minnow Pea." It was an awesome read. It is the tale of a island that was the home of the inventor of the phrase, "The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over the Lazy Dog." You know...all the letters of the alphabet are there.

Anyway...he's a big hero on his home island and a statue with his phrase has been erected. But the tiles start falling off. And the powers that be have decided that he is speaking from the grave and telling the inhabitants of the island they can no longer use those letters in their writing or speech. The book is written in letter form...and the letters end up quite funnie whin you can't use tha lettrs u neet. The first offense of using a banished letter constitutes a warning, the second a beating or the stocks, and the third offense you get kicked off the island or killed. The insanity can only be stopped if an equally short phrase using all the letters is discovered.
I was hooked.

Thennnnnnnnnnnn...I picked up "One hundred years of solitude"...by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. And this is the book that I got stuck on and it took me a long time to finish. Here is his picture (for Laura):

I wish that I had been able to find the picture of him that is on the back of the book cover. Does he look like a man of great depth...with many layers...both serious, funny, loveable, crazy, and kind allllllllll at once? Yeah...I thought so too...and THAT is exactly what is book is. I liked the book...and I will read much more of his stuff...but man...its heavy reading. Getting through all his words are like pushing aside wet heavy curtains. There are very few paragraph breaks on the pages...soooo many words. And in this book...it covers like six generations and they alllllll have the same name. It was hard for my mind to remember who I was reading about in all those words with no paragraph breaks.

It originally written in Spanish. I didn't know that at first. I feel smart reading a Spanish novel. GGM is a nobel prize winner...and said to be the best writer in Spanish since Cervantes (Don Quixote).

The book is fantastical and mundane, meaningful and meaningless, profound and fun, and simply real. Its about the Buendia family living in a mythical villiage...and for six generations how they live and love and die and yet remain.

One critic said it is the first book since the Bible that should be required reading for allll humans. Well...I don't know about THAT...but I hate to return it to the library. I want to keep it. Even if it sets me way behind in the 888 challenge it was sooooooooooooo worth reading.

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Update: We found like 20 mistakes in my typing, spelling, and grammer. I'm convicted. I'll start proofreading. That stinks.

Update 2: SON OF A NUTCRACKER! Grammar. Thanks, K. I'm secretly hoping that as Addy works on her own phonics...I'll learn too. It wasn't until at 25 as I watched the Leap Frog videos I could tell you what sound each letter made.