This week I've been doing catch up every day, and making slow progress, but progress nevertheless. My life could be so much improved if I just CAUGHT UP.
The Gendarme by Mark T. Mustian - I'm not sure where I stand on this novel. It was certainly a good and readable story. A 92 year old man starts to recall long buried memories about himself and the things he did when he was a 17 year old "gendarme" during the Armenian genocide. As a gendarme, he was responsible for accompanying refugees out of Asia Minor to Syria. Let's face what didn't get outright said in the novel although it got shown in many ways: they were women and children on a death march, he was a young strong man with a gun on a horse. Believe it or not, there is a love story of sorts in there too. So. It's a good book, but I can't feel anything for this old man and his forgotten memories.
Nemesis by Peter Evans - And then we have the supposedly true story of the most famous greek refugee from Smyrna, Aristotle Onassis. Our friend Tom recommended this to me as his favorite book. What? Tom! We can do better! It's exhaustingly researched stories about intrigue, competition and unscrupulous dealings. Do I believe the central premise of the book? I don't know. I guess it's plausible. At this point does it do any good to care? Maybe not. My final question is to ask what we can learn from reading this book. We can learn to not be like these people! If we get money, we don't have to be awful, we can be kind people who make good choices and treat others with respect. So if you like to read about, and want to revisit the 1960s and 70s whole Kennedy/Jackie/Ari/Maria/Christina/Bobby/Jack thing, have at it! 
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