Yes, fighting off the plague is an irritating bore, but to look at it from a different angle, it's also an opportunity to do some neglected reading. My reading list has a way of growing faster than I can manage, though that does prevent me from ever running out of reading material.
The latest gem has been on my mental list for a while, and today I finally picked it up. The Interesting Narrative, by Olaudah Equiano, first published in 1745, is a beautiful, painful autobiography. He tells his story from his childhood in Africa and his kidnapping at the age of eleven, through his adulthood and his service as the slave of an officer in the British Navy. He eventually bought his freedom, and spent the rest of his life working for the abolition of the slave trade. He writes with a lovely clarity and attention to detail, making his descriptions, particularly those of conditions on board slave ships, particularly heartbreaking. We read it now, when the slave trade is, at least in most places, no more than a shameful blot on our past, but he wrote it at a time when it was accepted and condoned by all but a few. It is a book that everyone should read once. I've posted a link to the Amazon page for it below for curious parties.
http://www.amazon.com/Interesting-Narrative-Other-Writings-Classics/dp/0142437166/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1288225519&sr=1-1
On a side note, I cut my finger at work this morning, on jam of all things. How does one cut one's finger on jam?
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