I haven't posted about books, unless I've read them for BlogHer,  in a long time but them I haven't read many that excite me lately or that I would consider "keepers".  I'll read most anything, except for science fiction.

****I'm about to take a detour****

Honestly, I've never enjoyed science fiction or futuristic books and personally just watching the upcoming presidential election fills me with enough dread for our future that I don't need to know where some authors think we are headed even in the imaginations of their minds.  It always leads to death and destruction anyway.

The conservative movement is a horror movie in and of itself, including Mr. "I'm taking a tax deduction of 77,000 for my wife's horse as a business (by the way, that horse is called a pleasure pursuit.  No one and I mean no one goes into dressage for money, puhleeze) Romney and Mr. "Please love me I'm so cute, my wife is cute, my kids are cute and I'm an avid follower of Ayn Rand."  If you don't know who she is, read Atlas Shrugged, then read her biography.  Life really worked out well for her.  I personally try and follow anyone who's life is more fucked up than mine.  I figure they must know something I don't, right?

I live in Virginia, in Norfolk for that matter.  Yes, that was the battleship Wisconsin permanently retired and ported at our museum Nauticus.  It was funny and a little artificial to have Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan come running from the quarter deck and down the plank way to be introduced.  First neither one of them or their immediate family ever served in the military, disingenuous don't you think?  Second, less than four blocks from the USS Wisconsin are the projects, very neat and well kept I might add.  Why didn't they come running from there?  Not to mention three major Universities in the city of Norfolk they could have held their announcement meeting at showing the people that they do care about students and their parents struggling to pay for college tuition.  I now have two children in college.  I'm middle class.  I also own a horse and I can guarantee you that I don't pay 7,000 a month to have her taken care of nor do I consider her a tax write off even though she is being trained for show and is a registered Thoroughbred.

One more thought.  Norfolk is blue.  You can't get bluer than Norfolk in the state of Virginia.  We haven't elected a Republican in ages.  In my district, republicans didn't even bother to run not even for state offices. Middle class white conservative men are pretty much a minority in this city and our unemployment rate is 5%.  Yet, we have been subjected to more ads than children watching cartoons for toys.  You're wasting money boys.  We're blue.  We are going to stay blue.  We are secular, we tend to be either very young and therefore more open minded or we are in our 50's and up and wish that you would just leave our medicare the hell alone, minority based, urban and frankly your well oiled hair and button down shirts don't do much for us.  Not even if you bought them from Costco.  In Norfolk, we tend to buy from local businesses.

***detour done***

Now that I've taken all that space relaying my thoughts about Mutt and Jeff, I should tell you about Pamela Clare's series.  It is after all what I started to write about but you know me, let me go down one road, even for a moment and I'm off.

Ms. Clare has a series written about the MacKinnon brothers living in the colonies in 1760 after their parents were exiled because of their participation, as Scottish highlanders, in the battle of Culloden.  They are grown men now, forced to fight for the English in the French/Indian war.

Ms. Clare is a smooth and seamless writer, moving you from scene to scene with no jarring jumps.  The drama is intense.  The historical events are vivid and for the most part kept within the margins of truth.  The language is poetic and realistic.  The characters are complex and imperfect finding their way to forgiveness for the choices that they have made.  Even the "villians" are only morally compromised people doing the best they can with the situation they have been placed in.

Her portrayal of the history and the characters involved  is really the story of what made this country strong, courageous and ultimately accepting of all that came to looking for absolution.

I give them my highest recommendation!

Pictures for your enjoyment: