1. What are you currently reading? The Chocolate Cat Caper by JoAnna Carl. I just started it, so I can't comment on the mystery that's certain to unfold. But I can share the setting -- a newly divorced big city girl returns to the sleepy little Michigan resort town where she spent her girlhood summers, and it's here that she plans to start anew. So far I enjoy it because I visited my niece in such a sleepy little Michigan resort town and like the way Ms. Carl is presenting it.
2. What did you just finish reading? Franklin and Lucy by Joseph E. Persico. This biographer took an interesting take on an oft-told tale and I appreciate his originality. Persico tells the story of FDR (and Eleanor) by putting his (and her) extracurricular relationships into historical perspective. What a sad, sad story it is. I came away believing that Roosevelt and the Lucy of the title (Lucy Mercer Rutherford) truly did love one another, and as a romantic I always find it heartbreaking when True Love Doesn't Conquer All. On the other hand, if he had divorced Eleanor and married Lucy, he most certainly would never have been President and that would have been a tragedy for the entire world.
This also solidified a feeling that's been gnawing at me since I watched the Ken Burns/PBS series on the Roosevelts: I don't like Eleanor. This disturbs me because I appreciate her life story, all she endured, and all she accomplished. But dear Lord, she was a drag. If it was fun, she was against it. As someone observes in this book, it's hard to be around a saint. There have been First Ladies I'd love to spend an hour with: Abigail Adams, Mary Lincoln, JBKO (of course), Pat Nixon and Laura Bush. But not Eleanor. And, since she's a quintessential feminist icon, I feel very guilty about it.
3. What will you read next? Dunno.
WWW has been resuscitated and I linked it on my blog.
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