48 hour challenge has become 4 hours, 8 minutes Challenge

Disappointing finish to the 48 hour challenge-didn’t have time to visit Columbus blog friends, didn’t have time to read. I have to remind myself that the things I did get done are going to really help sell this house. It’s nice that the kids are finally old enough that my husband and I can work on a project together without having to divide and conquer project/childcare. 

I did mange to finish Thread of Grade by Mary Doria Russell (yeah fellow Ohio resident!) and hope to be done with What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Bludnell by the end of the evening.  Interesting that they are both set in the 1940’s-I didn’t set out to pick them for that reason.  The first book was last month’s book club selection and is set during the last years of World War II in Italy and paints a gripping picture of the Italian Resistance in the countryside. When talking to a friend about the book at the pool I described myself as at typical late 1980s product of social studies education-no class every got all the way through world history (high school or college)-the teacher usually ran out of time around the late 1890s. So anything I know about World War I or II has been self-taught through the reading of historical fiction and nonfiction. I’m not sure that it is a very good way to know about such an important piece of world history, but it’s what I have. A Thread of Grace added more information about ad additional part of World War II of which I was previously unaware. 

At the beginning of the book there is a map and a list of characters. I did refer back to the both frequently and wish I had started keeping my own notes, as the names were unfamiliar to me and I would get the characters and locations confused. This book would make a great book for teachers to read and discuss together to help become aware of their own metacognitive processes.  The last line is memorable- “One last awful thought: all the harm he (Hitler) ever did was done for him by other people.” 

What I Saw and How I Lied is the National Book Award Finalist and has been on my TBR pile since pre-Cybils. More about it after I finish