New Year, New Book List

Last year, on a bet from Don, I began keeping a list of books I'd read. He was so sure that I must read at least 100 books a year and I couldn't believe that was possible. Still, I hit 84 titles from the end of March through December. Not bad! Today, I'll begin my 2009 list with two non-fiction titles, the first of which will bring me briefly back to Friday's rant.

Yes, it's called "read around the world" but there are so many thoughts that one's reading arouses. I suspect that what got me so wound up about god was probably the video clip I saw in which Joe the Plumber (who wasn't one) is now Joe the War Correspondent (who isn't one.) When asked if he was afraid to be traveling in the Middle East he blithely responded that, as he's a Christian, God would protect him. Hmmmmm-let's see. Would that be the same god who's protecting the Israelis and, at the same time, the Palestinians?

I've just finished an extremely interesting autobiography by New York Times and WSJ correspondent Helene Cooper. The House at Sugar Beach; in Search of a Lost African Childhood reminded me once again of how much we aren't taught in school. It makes me despair of the general public ever becoming aware enough of our country's history to make informed decisions about anything! How many of you knew that, long before the Civil War, there was a strong "back to Africa" movement (besides my sister who seems to know these things too)? Armed with their bibles and the desire to convert, African freemen left the United States in the 1820's looking for a home in Africa. The problem with bands of people looking to resettle is that they usually do it by taking someone else's land. Such was the case here. Finally settling in Monrovia, Liberia, after forcing land sales at gunpoint, the American Colonization Society paid the equivilant of $300 to become "Congo royalty" and Ms. Cooper's family line began.

As a child she lived a charmed life in a mansion on the beach with her parents and sisters. When she had nightmares and didn't want to sleep alone, her mother went into town and chose a native child to take into their home as a companion for Helene. She and Eunice were as close as blood sisters until the uprising in 1980 when the locals staged a coup, assassinating the President and forcing the Congo royalty, as the 150 year interlopers were called, to avoid assassination or imprisonment by fleeing Liberia. Eunice stayed and Helene came to the United States.

To her credit, Ms. Cooper admits that she moved her life in Africa into a compartment for safe keeping (my words, not hers, but that's the gist of it). Trying to adjust to life here, school, Americanization, and new friends, she seemed to forget for a while that she had ever lived her formative years in Africa. Eunice was relegated to another time and place. Living first with her mother, later with her dad, Helene was still enjoying what would appear to outsiders to be a charmed life, able to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and free lance for a variety of journals and newspapers. It wasn't until many years of maturity later, traveling all over the world, reporting on international affairs, with a dangerous stint in Iraq, that she began to reflect upon her life and realize that she had unfinished business in Liberia. Her inner thoughts about her return are well worth the wait.