New Reads and a New Review

I've decided to kick off my Classics Challenge list by reading The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. I've also written a review that was very favorable. I was afraid I was going to be bored by this book. Maybe because I thought it was just about fishing...and of course, I'm really not the "outdoorsy" type. Yet, the book really surprised me because of the several themes it touched.

Another classic I've started reading was Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Dialogue is very abundant here so it's an easy read. I may be finished with it by the end of this week.

Tallgrass by Sandra Dallas was listed in my WWII challenge book. The book touched on Japanese internment during WWII. Very interesting read...but disturbing also. It is part historical fiction and mystery.

I wasn't going to start reading The Help by Kathryn Stockett until later but after reading just a few sentences I was sucked right into the book. It's about three women - Skeeter (who's white and fresh off college), Aibilene (a black maid whose pain which she had bottled for so long but afraid to speak up) and Minny (a black cook whose outspoken ways landed her into trouble at times.)

I'm already halfway through the book and so far I've enjoyed the drama and the humor. I fell in love with the characters immediately. The setting's in Mississippi, 1962, around the Civil Rights Movement. It's a definite must read.