I'm currently reading both Howard Zinn's "The People's History of the United States" and the first book of Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings," otherwise known as "The Fellowship of the Ring."

No, I'm not crazy. "The People's History..." is a book that I read a chapter of every couple of days. I'm right up to the American Revolution and it's fairly amazing how much happened between 1492 and 1776 if you were a working class poor white, African slave, indentured servant, or American Indian. The book is absolutely brutal. Yes, our country was not founded by handshakes and flowers.

The overall tone of the book is both off-putting and necessary, if that makes any sense. I mean, this is a version of history as told by the people who rarely have a voice in the history books, so it is as brutal as you could possibly imagine. And because it's told from these perspectives, it carries a highly negative tone throughout most of its pages. So it's very hard to read if you have a generally favorable impression of the United States.

I'm not very far into "The Fellowship of the Ring," but my overall impressions are that it's both highly addictive and highly boring. There's a lot of exposition and sitting around. I'm probably going to be one of those people that constantly compares the movies to the books. In the movies, they find out about the ring and Frodo and Sam take right off on their quest. In the book, they find out about the ring and take MONTHS before taking off?!? Wha???

That being said, it's a great book and is easier to read than I thought it was going to be.

- Matthew