In Which I Post About H Before It's Too Late.

The three books I've been reading over the past couple weeks are all historical in nature. The one I'm reading now is How the Irish Saved Civilization, and the one I started out with was The Hyphenated Family. The latter was written by Hermann Hagedorn. How's that for H cred, huh?

Hagedorn's book was a memoir, both of his family and of his own life as the son of German immigrants, in the period leading up to WWI. It's long out of print, and so obscure that I believe I am the first person to ever blog about it. I must have picked it up way back when it was discarded by my high school library. The immigrant experience is one of the few areas of U.S. history that I find truly compelling; all my immigrant ancestors died before I was born, and I often wonder what America meant to them, how they reconciled the old life with the new. In this book, the Hagedorn family never really severs their ties to the homeland, and is wealthy enough to visit frequently. It made quite a contrast with the other story about immigrants I read a while back. The title and author escape me, but it was about a poor Scottish family. The adults were so happy to have reached the land of promise that they taught their American-born children very little about their roots, speaking of Scotland only occasionally, in such tones as one would speak of an old love who broke your heart and whom you never quite got over.

The book in the middle was historical fiction: Catherine, Called Birdy. It was what they call "young adult fiction" these days, about the daughter of a minor noble in the middle ages who is quite unhappy about her father's efforts to marry her off. I would describe it as good fiction but poor history; though the author had clearly done quite a bit of research, collecting authentic factual tidbits about medieval medicine, cuisine, and hygiene, she never seemed to have a handle on the medieval worldview. Birdy was a lively and interesting character, but she seemed far more like a twenty-first century American teenager than a product of the Dark Ages.

So that leaves Cahill's book about the Irish, which I've only really just started now, at the end of H fortnight. But fear not: the letter I comes right after the letter H. No beats will be missed.

Hamburgers? Herbal tea? Hugs? Hospitality? Yes. Health? Sometimes. Homestar Runner? Absolutely.

Imogen Heap - Hide and Seek