Thoughts on a Sunday...

I am nearing the home stretch with This is my Country, What's Yours?, having just over a hundred pages left. I am just finishing up Chapter Nine, which was a chapter dedicated to Newfoundland, then only two chapters and I am done! It has been a very interesting read, I must say, and I will be writing a full review in the next few days.

Sometime this week, I plan to be moving on to a more local book of history, that book being The Acadians by James Laxer.

An evocative and beautifully written history of some of Canada’s earliest settlers, and their search for a definitive home.

In 1604, a small group of migrants fled political turmoil and famine in France to start a new colony on Canada’s east coast. Their roughly demarcated territory included what are now Canada’s Maritime provinces, land that was fought over by the British and French empires until the Acadians were finally expelled in 1755. Their diaspora persists to this day.

The Acadians is the definitive history of a little-known part of the North American past, and the quintessential story of a people in search of their identity. In the absence of a state, what defines an Acadian is elusive and while today’s Acadian community centred in New Brunswick is more confident than ever, it is entering a contentious debate about its future.

James Laxer’s compelling book brilliantly explores one of Canada’s oldest and most distinct cultural groups, and shows how their complex, often tragic history reflects the larger problems facing Canada and the world today.

So, I will be interested to read that. I have read other books on them in the past, and of course, we learned about them in school since pretty much the day I started, so not a topic I am unfamiliar with.

It is almost time for me to get the new Nicholas Sparks book. He is the author that I hate to admit I read because he is so different than anything else I enjoy, but I read him. That means that I have to read True Believerand At First Sight in preparation for Dear John. Some of his books I like better than others.

I have also been giving some thought to a Chunkster Challenge following the posting of my Thirteen big books in my TBR pile. One of these days, I am going to have to read them. So, if I challenged myself to read one a month next year, that would get rid of them all. I know some other bloggers have been contemplating a challenge of that sort as well. I will have to think about it.