In the Beginning...

There were goals and hopes and dreams. And if I dare use the word...resolutions.

This year my resolution is to read more. But not just more. Read a book a week. In order to make that easier, I've joined with some other people to keep me motivated and accountable. There are also a few challenges that I can participate in. For instance, I've been trying to read Susan Wise Bauer's History of the Medieval World for a long time and it's just not getting itself read. I joined a challenge to read a chapter or two a week and I'm more optimistic that it'll happen. Plus I got the audio book on it and my runs have been taking me ninety minutes which is more than enough time to listen to a chapter or two.

Even better, I have already finished my first book. Hurray for me! It's actually the book for book club which I'm hosting in February. Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo. It's the story of families living in the Annawadi slum in Mumbai, India. I'm still processing this one. The writing flows very well. In some cases I got so caught up in the story that I forgot the book is about real people living a life I can't imagine in a real place. I almost wanted it to be dry and boring so I could put it down and tell myself it's okay, it didn't really happen like that. In the same vein, I can't really tell you my favorite character. It just seems weird to call the people in the book "characters" when they are real people. But there were some that I felt like I connected with better than others. Sunil was one of them. More than Abdul and his family, Sunil seemed young and like he needed a mother's care. Maybe that's why I connected with him. I have boys a similar age that are just starting their major growth spurts. When he realized that he was growing, I found myself tearing up.

So many questions left by this book. What should the roll of charities be? If I wanted to donate or help change things, would I be able to with all of the corruption? Are there solutions to the poverty found in the slums or is it just a byproduct of globalization that we should accept and live with? Would their lives be worse without globalization?

Mostly though, what's happening now? What are these families and individuals doing now? How did Abdul's court case end up? Overall this was one of the best written books I have read in a long time and I would recommend it to others with the caveats that there is bad language and the subject matter can be disturbing.