Where Is Your Bookmark? (12/23/2014)

I have been having the hardest time settling into a book so far this week. Too much on my mind, I think. Doctor's visits galore, last minute Christmas and end of the year preparations, and all that. This past Friday was my daughter's Christmas party at school. The children put on a lovely show for all us parents and her teachers served a delicious dinner to go along with it. Santa was there to give each of the children a gift.  Mouse was a little disappointed with hers, truth be told.  She didn't exactly complain, but she did mention it later during the ride home from the party. She's been asking for one thing, and one thing only for Christmas for a couple months now--and it wasn't what Santa gave her. Little does she know Santa knows someone in our family has already taken care of that particular gift. He didn't want to duplicate.  Mouse has since enjoyed playing with her Santa gift many times over. Whew.

Other than children's books, I am not sure if I will finish any other books this year. I don't have a number goal I am aiming for per say, but there's something to be said for starting the year fresh. Somehow though I doubt that will be the case this year. I will make my best effort though.

I most recently began reading The Syringa Tree by Pamela Gien, set in South Africa. 

In this heartrending and inspiring novel set against the gorgeous, vast landscape of South Africa under apartheid, award-winning playwright Pamela Gien tells the story of two families–one black, one white–separated by racism, connected by love.

The story was originally written as a play and the author later went back and filled the story out, turning it into a full length novel.  

What are you reading at the moment?  Is it something you would recommend?

Every Tuesday Diane from Bibliophile By the Sea hosts 

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros, where  

participants share the first paragraph (or a few) of a 

book they are reading or thinking about reading soon.

Here are the opening two paragraphs of Pamela Gien's The Syringa Tree:

Newly six, I lay in the dark listening to the rattle of my shutters. The moon was gone from them.

Something moved in the passage outside my door.  My heat banged up against my throat. I strained to listen, tried to be still. I must have called out. I felt warm fingers close my eyes. My father's hands smelled of long hours of antiseptic soap. "It's nearly midnight, Lizzy," he said, in the home I would finally submit to sleep in my Johannesburg bed. In the dim light, I saw he was still in his creased shirtsleeves rolled up from the day, but without his polished brown shoes. Usually at night, he left them by the front door. He must have had to go out again after we fell asleep, on another call, someone sick on a farm at Fourways, maybe, or further out at Honeydew, a child bitten by a snake or someone trying to be born, someone stabbed. Newly qualified as a doctor, he was not yet thirty, with dark rims beneath his eyes.

I admit the opening didn't grab me right away, nor did the first several pages.  I am glad I stuck with it though as fifteen or so pages in, I feel more invested. It is not a fast paced book, at least not that I can tell so far. I am enjoying it though.

Would you continue reading?

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