What I'm Reading: Little Women and Three Apples Fell From Heaven

Heading in to Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts.



During our big trip we visited the Orchard House Museum, and saw where Louisa May Alcott wrote Little Women.  The kids hadn't read the book yet, or seen the movie, but the tour was still interesting enough without that background, and it inspired me to buy a copy of the book in the gift shop and start reading it out loud to the kids.

Which brings up an interesting issue - where am I going to place this book in my 14 x 14 Reading Challenge?  The category of Children's Lit is already full up - I've read and listened to 14 childrens books with my kids already this year.  For the next half of the year the books we read together will have to go into other categories!

Little Women can go in my Women's Studies category, I think.

I've also just finished Three Apples Fell From Heaven, and thank goodness that's over with.  I did not realize what I was getting myself into when I selected this book - I chose it for my "Around the World" category of the 14 x 14 challenge, because it is about Armenia, which is an A.  Yes, I've decided to go around the world in alphabetical order.



The books for this category are all coming from Book Lust to Go: Recommended Reading for Travelers, Vagabonds, and Dreamers by Nancy Pearl.  Pearl is a librarian and author of multiple books that just review and recommend other books - I love her!  Book Lust is organized in alphabetical order, hence my choice to read one book for each letter of the alphabet.

But Three Apples Fell From Heaven is about the genocide of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire during WWI.  It is a wrenching and sickening and emotionally terrifying subject matter, addressed with beautiful, surreal, and dreamlike writing by the author.  Reading the book made me very, very sad.

I've already read my "B" (Botswana) book, so I need something more cheerful for the "C".  Luckily, I've got Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw: Travels in Search of Canada by Will Ferguson sitting on my TBR pile right now.  It looks like it should be a good change of scene.