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 It was inevitable that a novel featuring my three favourite historic figures (Diego Riveira, Frida Kahlo and Leon Trotsky) should find its way into my supermarket basket. How glad I am that it did!


The Lacuna is a well-researched and beautifully written epic novel that captured my imagination and held my attention from its early pages. It combines modern and ancient Mexican history with modern US history and an anti-war message. It tells the life of Harrison Shepherd, an American boy growing up in Mexico, and later of his career and exile in the USA. His story is interwoven with that of famous artists Riveira and Kahlo, and the Bolshevik leader, Trotsky.


Chancing to meet Frida Kahlo in the market place one day, he offers to carry her basket, and not discouraged by her rather scornful reply, he follows her home – the start of a complicated life-long friendship and his first job in the Riveira/Kahlo home.


Shepherd makes himself indispensible as a mixer of the best plaster, a fine cook and a secretary. When the household takes in exiled Russian leader, Leon Trotsky, Shepherd becomes his main scribe and translator. His diaries give colourful descriptions of the vibrant personalities he lived amongst and of a life under constant threat of attack.

After Shepherd’s death, he makes his way to small-town American and establishes a new life as an author. He leads a reclusive life and tries as much as possible to be unnoticed, but his novels are overnight successes and draw a lot of attention from women (in which Shepherd) is not remotely interested) and from the media.

As McCarthy’s witch-hunt against Communism draws momentum, Shepherd comes under suspicion by his former association with Riveira, Kahlo and Trotsky and is drawn into an ugly legal battle.

Will he clear his name? You will just have to read this fascinating and entertaining story to find out.  Highly recommended.

I recently visited the Phillips Collection and was thrilled to see Renoir’s famous painting Luncheon of the Boating Party.  After having a long discussion with friends about the intriguing people in the painting,  I decided that Susan Vreeland’s historical novel with the same title was moving to the top of my summer reading list.  I picked it up at the library today to read right after I finish my current book club book The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver.

As you can imagine, we often have discussions at the office about what everyone is reading, especially leading up to Memorial Day weekend.  I learned that several of my colleagues are reading the Millenium Triology by Stieg Larsson. I didn’t even know the triology had a name. I bought the first two for my Dad for Christmas last year and hope to “borrow” them back when I see him in July. I heard there is already a line forming!

Below are some other books on staff summer reading lists, quite a variety as usual:

• Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore
• The Shack by William P. Young
• Building Social Business by Muhammad Yunus
• Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky

What books are catching your eye this summer?

Ruta Rimas sent me a copy of Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna for Christmas, and it's been sitting over there, on the chair of unread books, ever since—gold and heavy-weighted.

This morning I rose to a desk full of work, glanced at the book chair and said to myself, "Well, who is going to notice, really, if you spend an hour of this morning reading?"

So that's all I've done—spent an hour reading The Lacuna—and may I just say that if nothing else wonderful happens in this story (and I doubt that will be the case), the first 28 pages contain Kingsolver's best writing ever, anywhere, as far as I can tell. This book takes place in Mexico, a country I've visited just twice (Juarez first, San Miguel de Allende, where I took this photo, second). I can now say that I've gone to Mexico thrice.

Read this:

Salome put on the new frock, painted a bow on her mouth, took her son by the arm and walked to town. They smelled the zocalo first: roasted vanilla beans, coconut milk candies, boiled coffee. The square was packed with couples walking entwined, their arms snaking around one another like the vines that strangle tree trunks. The girls wore striped wool skirts, lace blouses, and their narrow-waisted boyfriends. The mood of the fiesta was enclosed in a perfect square: four long lines of electric bulbs strung from posts at the corners, fencing out a bright piece of night just above everyone's heads.

I've been there. I've seen that.