What Katie Read

This is an astoundingly beautiful, heart-rending, captivating story of slavery and empowerment.  As soon as I finished it I wanted to start it all over again.  I also wanted to know more about the Grimké sisters, their lives, their courage and their persistence, as this is based on a true story. The book is set in Charleston, South Carolina, in the early 1800s.  The Grimkés are an affluent white family, and so they have slaves as servants.  Their low opinion of and often brutal treatment of their slaves is shocking, but not unexpected in a book of this type.  The story opens from the perspective of Hetty ‘Handful’, a young slave girl, daughter of another Grimké slave, Charlotte ‘Summer’.  Her and her mother dream of freedom, but in the Deep South this seems unlikely. The Grimkés have three daughters, who are expected to marry well, run their own household and own their own slaves.  But middle child Sarah has other ideas.  On Sarah’s 11 th bir...

Being non-fiction this is not my usual reading-for-pleasure choice, but a good friend gave it to me and I was intrigued.  I don’t have anything against biographies, and often enjoy them when I do read them, it just isn’t my natural preference.  And in essence this is an autobiography, albeit focusing on just the one year in the writer’s life.  But it isn’t just about her life, it is also filled with interesting research, facts, interviews and, of course, amusing anecdotes. As you can tell from the title, Helen, a lifestyle journalist living in London, moves to Denmark and charts her experiences during the year, one chapter per month with a theme for each chapter.  As is to be expected, this book is full of cultural insights, language oddities and many faux pas made by Helen. Helen speaks directly to the reader and is very frank and open about her feelings, intentions and mistakes.  Her journalistic training comes through both in the writing style and...