Reading List Blog - the why and the wherefore

I am creating this blog in order to write book reports of the books that I read commencing 1 January 2011. It is a pity that I did not record all my books read from early childhood as I have read thousands and thousands of books but it is never too late to start and so I begin.

I started reading Andrew Roberts' book (A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900) 28 Dec 2010. The cover itself was a draw with the flags of Australia/New Zealand, Canada, United States and the United Kingdom arranged in that order in two rows. My own history of being totally an "English-speaking" person with all my ancestry coming from a number of English counties which include Devonshire, Dorsetshire, Somersetshire, Wiltshire, Hampshire, London, Surrey, Warwickshire, Leicestershire, Staffordshire, Shropshire, East Riding of Yorkshire and Cumberland was also part of the interest factor. All of these counties were the birthplace of, location of, marriage place of, burial place of my 8 great great grandparents. All of my 8x great great grandparents were born in England and all but two of them were buried in England. But primarily I love to read history and we are surrounded by the results of all of us loving to read. There are books everywhere on subjects that cover much of the knowledge of mankind - religion, history, geography, science, arts, genealogy, and almost every National Geographic book that has ever been published since the late 1960s. I have entered all of our books on Library Thing and have only done the smaller bookcases thus far - we are already in excess of 2500. We have already given away boxes and boxes of books that we do not expect to read again. I am going to try to mostly borrow books but it is hard to pass books by in the book store and this was one of those times!

The book begins in 1900 and the author has taken it upon himself the task for carrying on the Historical survey by Winston Churchill of the English speaking peoples and since Winston Churchill covered up to 1899 he then began with 1900. The first fifty years of the book are of course what I learned in history classes in my elementary and high school days but when we reach 1950 I can remember all of the historical happenings with a brief glimmer of knowledge about the Berlin Airlift as my brothers pretended to be airplanes flying to the rescue of the Berliners whilst we listened to the news on the radio. Hence the first fifty years were not by personal experience but the author has captured very clearly the history of my country Canada within the English-speaking peoples and has accurately painted the feelings and actions of this country which was so small in numbers but large in heart especially with respect to the rights of people to a democratic government and a legislative system that respected all of them.

Now at page 522 I am well into the time period I remember. As I read through the 1970s I am remembering that time in our history with Pierre Trudeau standing defiant and protective of Canada.

When I finish reading the book which will likely be tomorrow I shall write a book report which will actually be the intent of this blog. I shall write a book report on every book as I read it to remind me of the points that I particularly wanted to remember in the book.