Would a Book About the Mayflower Bore You?

I got a glimpse into the worldview of a younger generation the other day, when my daughter Kate returned from a press trip up to Old Orchard Beach, ME. She was there to write an article for GoNOMAD about a family vacation, and told me what she hated most. "All that stuff about the old hotel, and the fire in 1906, that was really boring," she said. "I hate listening to history lessons I just want to know about what's there today," she said.

Then I showed her a book that I was very pleased arrived in my mailbox yesterday, that I had ordered from Penguin. It's Nathaniel Philbrick's latest book called Mayflower. I read the back cover with rapture: "an extraordinary journey to understand the truth behind our most sacred national myth: the voyage of the Mayflower and the settlement of Plymouth Colony....a fifty-five year epic that began in peril and ended in a war."

Wow, with that you got me...but she read it with a sarcastic sneer. "This sounds soooo boring, how can you read this?" I guess that is what's neat about books. People just have their own preferences, and only sometimes do they merge.

One guy who reads a whole lotta books who often shares my taste is Kentski. When I show him this book, he just might want to borrow it. So in spite of the fact that I didn't pass along a gene that makes history interesting, at least I can count on my friends to share good books and take an interest in the ones I love.