Reading and Eating
I finished the Ken Follett Century Trilogy!!! Fall of Giants covered WWI, Winter of the World continued with WWII, and The Edge of Eternity starts in the 1960s. One thing I loved about these books is it showed me the continuity between these events. I used to think of WWII as something that happened in the past, whereas events in the 1960s and 1970s were in more “modern” times. Now I understand more the connection between WWI, WWII, the Cold War, Vietnam, and the events leading to the fall of communism. Edge of Eternity focuses mostly on the children and grandchildren of the original characters from Fall of Giants. It was fascinating that a young man who fought in WWI, if he lived to a ripe old age, would also live through the Cold War. There were characters in the book who endured Nazi Germany, WWII, the Soviet occupation of East Germany, and then saw the Berlin Wall come down. It was incredibly moving to me that Black people who fought for Civil Rights in the 1960s could live to see Barack Obama elected president. I will say that, while I was reading it, Edge of Eternity was my least favorite of the three books, and I’m still trying to figure out why. The first two focused heavily on Europe, and in Edge the focus shifted to the United States and Soviet Union. There was a lot of detail about politics in the US, and while it was interesting, the story bogged down a little for me. JUST A LITTLE! I still enjoyed it, but whereas with the first two books, I didn’t want them to end, with Edge, I was kind of looking forward to finishing it. Then… I actually finished it, and the ending was so good that I cried. There was an epilogue, which I was initially annoyed to see- I mean, the ending was perfect, what’s with this epilogue? But then the epilogue also made me cry. You guys- it was so good and I’m so glad I read these books. I’ll be thinking about them for a long, long time. It was hard to move on to anything else, but I had to forge ahead. I have some library books to get through, so I started this one: So far, so good! I’m not very far into it, but I’m enjoying it. Eating-wise, I continued the pumpkin theme with some pumpkin oatmeal. No special recipe- I just add a couple dollops of pumpkin puree and pumpkin pie spice to my regular oatmeal. For dinner on Sunday, I went to Nora Cooks and browsed through her “Fall Recipe” section. I ended up making Butternut Squash Curry With Chickpeas. It was good! The only problem was, I should have doubled the recipe. I like my Sunday dinner to also feed us on Monday, and I should have known one can of chickpeas wasn’t going to do that. My daughter wasn’t a fan of the squash, but she’s obviously insane. You cube the squash and roast it, and add it to the curry at the end- it was delicious. I’ll echo Engie’s recent question- what was the last book that made you cry? What are you reading now?