Reading in Volume

These five bestsellers weighed 11 pounds and measured 8-1/2" tall. And that was AFTER we returned "Snowball", the biography of Warren Buffet. I won't count that one because neither Sally or I could get through it . . . the story of a guy who lived just to make money somehow didn't sit right with the way things are going these days (although it fits right in certainly with Wall Street).

But we're doing well on the others, she having finished "Edgar Sawtelle" for instance while I'm closing in on the final pages of Ken Follett's "A World Without End", the one on the bottom. If we ever finish the stack that amounts to almost 500 cubic inches of serious literature per person. I probably could figure out how many pages too but I'm almost worn out just realizing the inches and pounds.

The two by Menzies are controversial and largely unaccepted by academia. One postulates that China discovered America (and most other continents) while in "1434" he thinks China ignited the Renaissance. Despite the exciting possiblities of each I found both to be awfully dry. Menzies spends a huge amount of time on translated Chinese, Portugese, and Italian documents in an effort to buttress his arguments but in the end nothing seemed compelling enough, despite the fact that you want to believe these theories. I mean a Chinese junk found in the Russian River ???

So until I take on "Edgar Sawtelle" my fun right now is with Follett. He's a Brit with I think 18 bestsellers behind him and one, "Pillars of the Earth" is the launching board for this "World Without End", based as it is in England in the 1300's. My copy is paperback and as you can see, thick and heavy. Good thing they did away with the term "pocket book".

Historical fiction I think you'd call it as it covers real events and actual places in England, including war with France and the plague. The central themes are the prominence of the church and the ugly relationships of earls and barons to serfs and peasants. In fact things are so routinely bad that it almost becomes predictable, a criticism I have of the book. Every single time someting nice is about to happen to some downtrodden schmuck an insanely cruel lord beats him out of it. The really evil guys also last way too long too, (one of them, Philemon, lasted til the very last, 1,014th page).

But it's colorful and intricate; the way Follett winds plot and characters together is absolutely heroic. You learn five chapters after the fact why Caris said something to Merthin that at the time made no sense at all. Follett's office walls must be papered over with notes and plot lines.

Sally and I are most fortunate to receive gift certificates to Village Books for holidays and birthdays. We couldn't afford this otherwise and yet we're still awash with books. Surmising that there are many others with similar collections in their homes makes me wonder if we could put together a private library here in Shastina and save people some money during these hard times.

Any thoughts on that?