Good reads

I finished reading Jacqueline Baker's The Horseman's Graves. It's a book for adults and it's about place and people and time. 'The place' is the Sandhills on the edge of the Alberta/Saskatchewan border. 'The people' are the German Russians from the old country and 'the time' is the early 20th century. It's a beautifully written book hinting at ghosts and magic. It's the kind of book that whispers, which reminds me of a favourite quote by Logan Pearsall Smith: "What I like in a good author isn't what he says, but what he whispers." The reviews she got for this book weren't whispers, though. They were shouts of praise.

I got to meet Jacqueline Baker at a geneology conference near the Sandhills of her novel back in June. She's a wonderful, vibrant person. I look forward to reading her future work. One more thing, I notice a different cover on the Amazon site. I have the haunting cover of a white horse on my copy. The Amazon cover shows the bottom half of a barefoot young woman sitting down with her hands in her lap. Interesting.

Now I'm reading a book (in German, it's called Die Flucht und Vertreibung by Werner Arndt) lent to me by a woman who was a nine year old in Dresden during the massive bombing. I deliver her mail. She lives in a tidy, not-so-little house which she maintains on her own, even though she looks frail and walks with a cane. So many little girls hidden behind the wrinkles of time.

So many stories.