So, what have you been reading this summer?
Just back from vacation this week, after a week off at a cottage in beautiful Red Bay, Ontario, on the shore of Lake Huron, north of Sauble Beach, where I finished one book I began reading at the start of the summer…..and made some decent headway on another.
Today though, I came across a story about an Associated Press-Ipsos Reid poll released yesterday that indicates that one in four Americans read NO books last year. According to the survey, among those who did read, women and older people were most avid, and religious works and popular fiction were the top choices. The typical person claimed to have read four books in the last year - half read more and half read fewer.
All along the Red Bay beach last week though, people were devouring books, mostly paperback fiction. Anyway, I just finished “Citizen of the World: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau - Volume One: 1919 - 1968″, by University of Waterloo history professor and former Liberal MP John English. English is not the most entertaining writer, but his attention to detail in this volume is remarkable. He told me he is working on a second volume to be released in 2009. I am just wrapping up “1967: Canada’s Turning Point - A Chronicle of Canada’s Centennial Year” by the late Pierre Berton, written ten years ago. In it, Berton paints a vivid picture of a country on the verge of moving from adolescence into adulthood, and harkens back to a simpler time…a time when Canada was easier to define. Remember Bobby Gimby and the song CA-NA-DA? Or how about the Maple Leafs and the Canadiens in the Stanley Cup final and Expo ‘67? I have enjoyed both of these books.