Reading to Escape & Books Out of Nowhere.

I’ve been reading waaay too much lately.  If my appetite for food was half of what it has been for books, I'd be bed-bound today. Not giving myself breathing space between books or genres as plots, characters, incidents, etc, all mash up together in my head. 

Aside from the original Pern books, I’ve already read most of those written after the initial trilogy, also, too. Heatstroke: nature in an age of global warming, Storm Clouds Rolling In:

1860-1861 (civil war beginnings), The Last Man, Tomorrowland - the 1964-65 NY World’s Fair, The Kinshield Saga (another trilogy), Moon Shot (Updated, 2011) - NASA’s beginnings from Mercury to Apollo by Alan Shepard & Deke Slayton, and The Magicians (book 1 of another trilogy) by Lev Grossman.

I'm looking forward to reading Outlander, but since it's almost 900 pages, think I'll wait until the weather changes and spending time outdoors will be even less frequent than now. There hasn't been much else to do being stuck at home, and all

that, but I had to come up for air. So, in an effort to free up brain space, and organize that already digested material, I set the eReader aside for a couple of days.

Then last evening I opened the iPad and discovered a book titled: World War II London Blitz Diary, Volume two, 1941. I have no idea where it came from - it’s not a Kindle title, I checked - or how long it’s been on the tablet. Although it sounded interesting and is something I would be curious about, especially British History and women’s history, I do not know how it  got on my iPad. I know I didn’t buy it.  Then I read the Overview:

Do you find yourself watching reality TV? Well, if you do, click off that set and head for the real thing. These diary entries, written 70 years ago by Ruby Thompson, who had to simultaneously put up with the Blitz bombing of London and a marriage that was as damaging to a woman's psyche as those Nazi bombs were to the city, will take you back to a time and put you in the middle of the history the way no boring textbook summary of the war could. What was it really like for the individuals who bore the fear, rationing, and destruction created by the Blitzkrieg against London? How were women stuck in bad marriages, held captive not only by convention, but by their own mindset that had been drilled into them from birth? Ruby's fierce intelligence, powers of observation, clear writing, and analysis of her miserable husband and unhappy marriage provide insight into both history and the psychological state of a woman stuck partly by her era and partly by her own sense of what was possible. A fascinating revelation for anyone interested in World history and women's history. 

Of course I don’t watch ‘reality TV’ or any other TV for that matter. But this peaked my curiosity. I read half of it last night before finally turning off the lights. I found it difficult to put down. Fascinating, deeply moving and embarrassingly personal at times.

The story behind how the diaries came to be published is a good tale in its own right.  This is book two of what I think is a trilogy - this woman was a prolific writer - candid and passionate.

I ran a few searches today and it turns out to be a Barnes & Noble NOOK title, which is probably why it’s on the iPad and not the Kindle reader. I wonder if it is possible for someone to send copies of NOOK books to other readers as it is from Kindle to Kindle.

Anyway, it’s a mystery, but I am the happy recipient of someone’s gift. As soon as I’ve finished the errands and chores for the day, it will be just the thing to take my mind off the fact that another round of Chemo begins this afternoon. Joy, anyway!

And so it goes.

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