Two Biographies...

each alike in integrity, setting a scene in wildly different locales, yet both resonated with me.

First comes Love, then comes Malaria by Eve Brown-Waite.

This was a fantastic book. A real-life love story and adventure, which I did not want to end. It had a bit of a rough start, which did initially put me off the book a little... the beginning felt a little too superficial somehow, and while I understand that this was for contrast with the later portions, it could have been achieved a little more smoothly. The book does recover quickly from a shaky first chapter and plunges you into the story of her experiences, first in the Peace Corps in Ecuador, and then in Uganda. I just really enjoyed reading about the people, places, and experiences she had. Some of them evoked my own childhood in Egypt.

Not Becoming My Motherby Ruth Reichl.

Reichl takes an unusual tack in this book about her mother... she talks, proudly of not becoming her mother, but of becoming what her mother wanted her to be. She talks about this in the context of her mother's own life and experiences and thwarted desires...