Books

This is a post that perhaps only members of my immediate family can truly appreciate. I'm just throwing that out in advance, so if you read this and can't figure out why I think it's funny, you'll know that you're just on the outside of an inside joke.

Most people who know me have learned that I am endlessly fascinated with Latin America, and even more specifically the ruins from the so-called "Sun Kingdoms" in Latin America. I realize it's nerdy, and I don't care. The other day a guy in the ward was over visiting and somewhere in conversation it came out that he had minored in Latin American history. We talked about it for a bit, and I wound up loaning him a book I own about the conquest of Mexico.

The next day I ran into his roommate at a birthday party and he mentioned to me that he'd noticed the book I had lent his roommate. He asked me a little bit about it, and I told him that yeah, it's kind of graphic and bloody in parts, but really pretty riveting. The roommate told me that if I liked that book he had another book that he wanted to recommend. I generally don't take other people's book recommendations. Especially if I'm not certain what sort of literature that person generally reads. All the same, I had to be polite and act interested, so I asked him for the title of the book. He prepped me a little by repeating his whole-hearted endorsement of this book. However he warned me that it's very difficult to find, but that he can loan me his copy. I literally laughed outloud in his face when he announced that the title of the book is Enchanted Vagabonds.

For those of you have read this post, and now don't understand why that's even noteworthy allow me to try and explain, but I'm convinced you will never really understand. This is my Dad's favorite book. It's was out of print for literally decades, although I was looking online and I'm thinking it might be back in print because a brief search produced several copies available for purchase. Regardless, I imagine that you've probably never even heard of this book, unless you've met my dad. If you know my dad there's a high probability you know all about this book. It took my mom some time to finally track down a copy in a used bookstore in Salt Lake. She might regret that, because we've all been hearing about the adventures of Dana & Ginger Lamb non-stop ever since. See that, I even know their names, and I've never so much as cracked the cover. My dad of course tried to pressure me into reading it as well, but I resisted, primarily on the grounds that if your parent really wants you to do something, it's obviously not worth doing.

Who knows though, maybe I'll take this guy up on his offer and borrow his copy. I've read lots of other books my dad recommended and I've yet to be disappointed, so maybe it's time to give this one a whirl...maybe...