What I'm Reading

While I'll admit to devouring a good number of mindless pocket novels while I watch my son in the sandbox, I have also filled my mind with a few good books. I recently read The instinct to heal : curing stress, anxiety, and depression without drugs and without talk therapy by Servan-Schreiber, David. This book is about alternative therapies. I found it very interesting. One therapy mentioned, EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy (see emdr.com), sounded intriguing but I am a skeptic and cannot see how this works, unless it is hypnotism.

For fiction, I read The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Kidd. I loved this book, and gave it to my 14 yo to read. Taking place during the time of the emergence of the civil rights movement in the 1960's South, a young girl learns to be loved and that she is worth loving. The interview of the author in the back of the book said that she doesn't plan a sequel. I am hoping she changes her mind. In the book, the young (white) girl is growing to love a young black man, who aspires to be a lawyer working in civil rights. They know that a relationship could mean death for him, and trouble for her. Rosaleen, a black woman who starts out as Lily's nanny, is just beginning to blossom in the book as a courageous civil rights advocate. These three people and their experiences in the troubled South during the late 60's would be a natural sequel. In the meantime, I hear Sue Kidd has another book out, The Mermaid Chair.

Now, I am working on Pride and Predjudice by Jane Austin. I am trying to read a non-fiction, good fiction, and some classics in with my reading for fun.