Chapter 29 - Summer Vacation

As Robert Burns so aptly put it, "The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men Gang aft agley." In other words our plans for our summer vacation did not exactly pan out the way we hoped. We were all set to host our youngest daughter and her family here at the beach and then we were to take our grandson Max to Williamsburg with us. On the Saturday before the family was to arrive, Max started with a high fever. Careful observation and a trip to the doctor identified that Max had pneumonia so no beach trip for them! Dave and I decided to continue with our Williamsburg plans (he can work from anywhere) and so we did, moseying our way up the road stopping at antique and consignment shops along the way. After a full week and a half of antibiotics we picked up Max in tidewater Virginia and spent the rest of our week with him. That was the same week as Tropical Storm Debby. While a wet week we were able to see Jamestown and Williamsburg and to play a little miniature golf as well as go on a ghost hunting tour.

Max also is into antiques so he joined us in exploring shops as well. Not what we imagined but good nevertheless.

I did not get as much reading done as I was hoping though. I read a book for book club - not one I would have picked necessarily and another one for fun. Never to be left without a book, I brought two more with me and at a thrift store found two others I hadn't read but were on my list. Here is what I read and what I am going to read.

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell - I have seen this book countless times over the last 20 years and it has interested me for a few reasons - first it was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize, and second because it was so talked about when it came out. To be fair I have stayed away from it in the past because it is slightly more than 500 pages and when I was a bookseller I could read two books in the time it would take me to read this one. The story is told through six different voices and in six time periods and it ties everything together at the end. It was a brilliantly conceived and executed book but may not appeal to all. This took me longer to read than I thought it would as I took lots of notes along the way to support our book club discussion.

A Death in Cornwall by Daniel Silva - As I have said before I can divide books into two categories for me - steak books and potato chips books. If Cloud Atlas is a steak book, this was a potato chip book, one really quick read for enjoyment but one which doesn't stay with you a long time. In this latest Gabriel Allon adventure, the former Mossad assassin is helping to investigate the death of a British art professor and in the process discovers unscrupulous activities dating back to World War II.

Rules at the School by the Sea by Jenny Colgan - I enjoy Jenny Colgan's books and especially love that her books take place mostly in coastal Scotland. This has been on my TBR list for a long, long time and for one reason or another I haven't gotten to it. While Maggie Adair's first year as a teacher at Downy House has been successful and she is planning a wedding to her longtime boyfriend, things are going on around her which might erupt into scandal for the school and herself.

Against All Odds by Alex Kershaw - I just got this nonfiction book. Having read Alex Kershaw in the past and loving history as I do, it seemed like a perfect accompaniment to a week away. It is still on my TBR pile though. It is the story of four of the most decorated soldiers of World War II, all Medal of Honor recipients.

The Winemaker's Wife and The Room on Rue Amelie by Kristin Harmel - I picked up both books at a thrift store and they are in spectacular condition. The Winemaker's Wife has two separate timelines one in 1940's France in the Champagne region, and the other in present times when a feisty grandmother comes to visit her granddaughter and insists on a trip to France. The Room on Rue Amelie, also in the same time period, about a woman who is not only a part of the French Resistance but also ends up hiding her 12 year old Jewish neighbor. Kristin Harmel has a way of bringing history to life.

How about you? What have you read on your summer vacation?