The Portable Louisa May Alcott

Keyser, Elizabeth Lennox.  The Portable Louisa May Alcott. New York: Penguin Books, 2000.

Recently I was able to visit Louisa May Alcott's home in Concord, MA. I really enjoyed touring her house and learning more about her life and the parallels between her story Little Women and her life story.  While I was there, I couldn't resist purchasing one of her books, and I was happy to discover this anthology of her works. 

This book contains letters, essays, short stories, and snippets from Alcott's novels.  I am quite used to knowing of Alcott as the author of Little Women; I did not know, though, that she also wrote short stories.  I have thoroughly enjoyed exploring this other side of Alcott, and I highly recommend that you stop by your library for some exploring, too.

Things Fall Apart

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York: Random House, 1959.

Things Fall Apart is a common entry on many of the "great books everyone should read" lists.  It also used to be an entry on the "great books Jenni hasn't read yet" list.  A friend of mine decided to start reading through this list of great books, and her decision to read morphed into an online book group of sorts, so I was motivated to finish this book because others were also reading it with me.

I was intrigued to follow the story of Okonkwo, his family, and his tribe as Okonkwo first establishes himself as a man very unlike his father, then faces exile from his community, then returns to discover that missionaries have brought division to his once unified tribe.  Truly things did fall apart for him.  I found it interesting that the tribe tolerated and even enjoyed the presence of the first missionary, a man who was more moderate in his views and more willing to accept the cultural differences between himself and the African people, but that the divisions, difficulties, and violence happened when the missionary was replaced by a more zealous and less tolerant person. 

This book is definitely outside my usual genre of literature, but it was an interesting read and I am glad to be able to put it on my "books I have already read" list.