Currently I'm in the midst of the latest of the #1 Ladies' Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith, The Good Husband of Zebra Drive. Charming as always, the kindness of these books radiates.
The sweetest moment so far is just a small scene between Mma Makutsi, she of the 97% at Botswana Secretarial College and big glasses, and her fiance, Phuti Radiphuti, stutterer and owner of the Double Comfort Furniture Store. They are contemplating their wedding:
My wedding. My wedding guests. Chairs. it was a long way from those days of penury as a student at the Botswana Secretarial College, of rationing herself in what she ate; of making do with just one of anything, if that. Well, those days were over now.
And Phuti Radiphuti, for his part, thought, My days of loneliness are finished. My days of being laughed at because of the way I speak and because no woman would look at me--those are over now. Those are over.
He reached out a took Mma Makutsi's hand. She smiled at him, "I am very lucky to have found you," he said.
"No, I am the lucky one. I am the one."
He thought that unlikely, but he was moved very deeply that somebody should consider herself lucky to have him, of all people. The previously unloved may find it hard to believe that they are now loved; that is such a miracle, they feel; such a miracle.
Absolutely.
Am also finishing a book that I just found on the bottom a stack of stuff (how embarrassing!): Because God Is Real: 16 Questions, One Answer by Peter Kreeft. Here's part of what he says about families:
Families are our schools of love, our first lesson in overcoming our natural egotism. Each of us is created as an individual, with our own will. With that will, we make millions of choices throughout our lives. This makes each life a drama, and the most important theme of the drama is the choice between good and evil, between unselfish love and selfish lovelessness, between centering our lives on ourselves and centering our lives on others, between treating ourselves as God, as the center of the world, and loving others as God loves them. The family is our great weapon in the battle.
Don't know what's next up. Finishing Peggy Noonan's book about JPII, I suspect. Then maybe another Heyer (only 1 left in my stash--time to buy more!) or perhaps a history book. I have several on my shelves........
Not that I don't have several of lots of things!
bitter is the new black. and, i don't care what any of my literati leaning buddies have to say, i love this book. it is a fabulously guilty pleasure and i'm relishing every minute of it. just don't tell mamaT. ::wink::