Sometime around 5th or 6th grade, I developed a love of reading. It has always had the ability to fully transport me to an alternate reality. First my parents, then my partners and kids have all commented on how hard it can be to pull me back into the now.
This holiday season, I got a new book to read and realized that in the pandemic driven, hard to focus, year of 2020, I had started and not finished three books. There are books you don’t finish because they just are not that interesting or engaging. And then there are books you don’t finish because you just haven’t gotten to the end yet. The three I had going were of the latter variety. So, I committed to finishing two of the three before starting anew.
Today’s finish was “These Truths – a History of the United States” by Jill Lepore. I’ve been a student of US and modern world history for as long as I could read, and I learned a lot in this book. It’s 800 pages that clearly help you understand the exceptionalism of the American Idea, and how as a nation, we have so often failed to live up to the promise of the idea, while continuing to evolve it. It is that paradox that we live with every day and through every political decision. It’s a long read, but if you want to better understand the context of our time (history doesn’t repeat, but it does rhyme) it’s a great read.
Not Really a Boomer 