Foreign Correspondence

I recently read another good book by an author that I enjoy.  The first book by Geraldine Brooks that I read was Year of Wonders, a story based on the plague in England in the 1600s.  Then I read her book People of the Book, which was inspired by a true story about a mysterious manuscript.  This intriguing story spanned five centuries.  I was surprised to recently come across another, totally different, book by Geraldine Brooks, Foreign Correspondence.

"As a young girl in a suburban neighborhood of Sydney, Australia, Geraldine Brooks longed to discover the places where history happens and culture comes from, so she enlisted pen pals who offered her a window on adolescence in the Middle East, Europe, and America.

Twenty years later Brooks, an award-winning foreign correspondent, embarked on a human treasure hunt to find her pen friends. She found men and women whose lives had been shaped by war and hatred, by fame and notoriety, and by the ravages of mental illness. Intimate, moving, and often humorous, Foreign Correspondence speaks to the unquiet heart of every girl who has ever yearned to become a woman of the world.  Beginning in the mid-1960s, the book shows world events through the eyes of an adolescent girl leading an isolated (or so she thinks) life in Sydney, Australia."

Little does young Geraldine realize that when she grows up, she will visit and work in all the places she spent so much time dreaming about. 

Check out Geraldine Brooks' website to find out more about this interesting author.  Her latest book, Caleb's Crossing, will be available in early May.  Caleb's Crossing was inspired by the story of the first Native American Indian to graduate from Harvard University. 

Author Geraldine Brooks