1. What are you currently reading? My Not So Perfect Life by Sophie Kinsella. I'm really loving this one. We meet Cat at the beginning of her career in marketing/advertising in the heart of London. Her point of view and observations are so charmingly spot on that I feel I not only know her, I feel I was her.
So far, the story is shaping up to be a second cousin to The Devil Wears Prada: You know, a young woman discovers the darker side of a glamorous industry when she finds herself at the mercy of a rather monstrous older woman. But the characters here are less arch and more likeable.
I like Kinsella, too. I know from her Shopaholic series that she's a funny writer and am happy to report that here, she's not overly jokey. The humor flows naturally.
2. What did you recently finish reading? The Road to Jonestown by Jeff Guinn. Was he born evil, or did he become evil? That's what was on my mind as I traveled from Indiana to California to Guyana and certain death with Jim Jones.
After this telling of the Peoples Temple horror story, I've concluded that Jones wasn't evil after all, just crazy. Instead of getting the help he needed, he took drugs and more drugs. Pharmaceuticals fed his delusions of grandeur, paranoia and obsession with control.
This is a hard book. There's exploitation, cruelty and the inexorable march to mass suicide in the jungle. But there's also the congregants of The Peoples Temple -- so many of them good people who believed in racial equality and social justice. They gave over everything to "Father" (aka Jim Jones) because they believed in helping the poor and empowering the disenfranchised. My heart breaks for them. They thought they were serving a higher, completely laudable purpose, when in reality they were victims of a mad man.
Well told and engrossing, I recommend this book if you're interested in the tragedy that took more than 900 lives in a matter of hours.
3. What will read next? I think it will be time again for a mystery.
