Committed

My second book to read this summer was “Committed – a Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage” by Elizabeth Gilbert the author of “Eat, Pray, Love – One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia.”

I recently finished Gilbert’s bestseller Eat, Pray, Love and when I found Committed ready to download at my library I just knew I had to read it too.

Just like Eat, Pray, Love this too is a memoir. The difference is that it also contains some socio-historical bonus sections as she is trying to make peace with the complicated institution of marriage.

I still find it amazing that I actually found this book immensely interesting and that after being married 10 years could learn so many new facts about marriage that I didn’t know from before. For example that society didn’t invent marriage, couples did that. Society just tried to control the couples, but have never been able to do so.

I would definitively suggest this book for my friends and family to read as I really enjoyed reading it myself.

I was not asked to write this recommendation for this book, but I am an affiliate of Amazon and will make some profit if you use this link to buy the book.

Always looking up

When I go on vacation I always try to read a lot. Having my E-reader with me made this task very easy. The night before I left for Norway I went online to my local library and checked out several books. What I love about this system is that I end up borrowing books I never would have read otherwise.

The first book I read was “Always Looking Up – The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist” by Michael J. Fox.

This was a far stretch for me. A memoir divided into themes of work, politics, faith and family. Me reading about American politics, it would never have happened before the E-reader. (I’m sorry this is sounding more and more like a commercial for E-readers, but I really do love mine).

Rarely do I find a book that makes me laugh out loud or make me want to read passages out loud for people around me. Fox really is an optimist and he has a way of describing his hardships of living with Parkinson’s that is so right on, raw, but still positive and humoristic.

He also explains his view on stem cell research. I have never been able to make up my mind on this topic. It’s not that it doesn’t interest me, but it just hasn’t been necessary for me to learn much about it. Not being able to vote in America and it being to much of a hassle to vote in Norway (not that stem cell research has been on the agenda in Norway as far as I know anyways) I have just let the topic rest. This spring however I got to learn about the option there is out there to adopt frozen embryos that in vitro parents have offered for adoption and while that sounded like the perfect solution, Fox offered a more nuanced view of it and I find that I have to support him.

No matter what you think of stem cell research, or what you thought of Fox as an actor I believe you would like this book.

The latest books I’ve read

For my birthday my mom gave me a Sony E-reader and with it a new world opened to me. I can finally find time to read again. My reader is easy to bring in my handbag and while the kids are playing I can read no matter where we are. This has enabled me to read 400 page thick books again.

Angels of Destruction I really liked. Throughout the book you learn about the mother and father who lost their only child when she ran away from them. You learn about the daughter and her misguided boyfriend. And all throughout the story is a little girl with chopped hair and glasses that helps them all come to terms with what has happened.

I really enjoyed this book and I still don’t know what to make of the little girl. If you ever have read it or if you ever read it, please let me know your theories on this little girl.

I read about The Help in my local newspaper and knew I had to read it especially after hearing my dear old friend Lois tell me stories from when she worked in the black wing of a hospital in the south.

There is three voices in this book, two are black housekeepers and one is a white young woman. Together they are experiencing the months counting down to the Big  March on Washington. Collecting the stories of the housekeepers, good and bad while fearing for their lives.

For someone like me who doesn’t know the American history very well it was very interesting to get a look into the southern ways of living only 50 years back.

If you would like to read it, please use the links below as I am an Amazon Associate. Thank you.