Book Report: Volume 16

I have about thirty things checked out of the library, but given all the overtime I've been putting in for the last week or so, the only one I've been able to make any headway on is the audiobook I've been listening to on the way to and from the office:

The Real All Americans was excerpted in Sports Illustrated when it first came out a few years ago, and I checked it out in hardcover at the time. It sat in my apartment, mocking me, for three weeks; I might have renewed it, but even if I did, I didn't get farther than skimming the first few pages and looking at some of the photos. It's hard to get into nonfiction in my off hours, given all the nonfiction I read at the office, so having it read to me is a nice switch. 


Listening to the descriptions of the battles between the U.S. Army and the Native Americans made me think about how the more things change, the more things stay the same. After rounding up some of the Indians who were involved in attacks on the military and civilians, the government came up with an "extralegal solution": "The combatants would be held indefinitely as prisoners of war, without trial, at a remote prison site" (page 40).  Hmm. Where have we heard this idea before?


The other book I'm in the middle of is My Name Is Memory by the woman who wrote the Traveling Pants books. 

It's your classic boy-meets-girl story, except that the boy met the girl thousands of years ago and then keeps meeting her as they are reincarnated; fate usually prevents them from being happy together, but maybe this time will be different. I'm only halfway through, but her take on the concept of past lives, while not completely original, intrigues me — probably because it reminds me of a story my mom likes to tell.


At some point, when I was, say, two or three years old, she and I went someplace and I announced that I had already been there. (I wish I could remember off the top of my head where we went; I'll have to ask her again this weekend.) She knew that she'd never taken me there, and when she asked me if I was sure, I said that my other mother had taken me. She thought maybe I meant the babysitter, so later she asked the babysitter about it, but the babysitter had never taken me there either. (Cue Twilight Zone theme music!) Apparently that's a common thing that little kids do, though: Have knowledge of a place even though they've (seemingly) never been there before. Spooky. 


Anyhow, I just noticed that this is the first book in a planned trilogy, so even when I get around to finishing it, I won't really be finished. That may be a good thing, though.