About 6 months ago my brother, John, told me about the book "Reclaiming Conversation" by Sherry Turkle. Our daughter, Leah, asked me in October what I wanted for Christmas and I said I wanted this book by Sherry Turkle. So, for a Christmas gift she gave me this book and I read it from cover to cover. It is about our current society where many people hide behind their cell phone screens possibly for a good chunk of time each day and think they are conversing with other people. Most of them are only temporarily connected (NOT conversing) and some of them, sadly, have not learned how to talk face-to-face with others. A couple years ago when I was auditing (for free) a few courses at OSU I noticed that many students have their heads buried in their hand-held machines and, I am sure they felt very connected with their friends and the world. Being connected and actually communicating with another person are two different things. It is a terrific book and a straight-forward read. I highly recommend it!

Another book is "Menno Moto" by Cameron Dueck, a Mennonite fellow from Manitoba. He is trained as a journalist and currently lives in Hong Kong. The book is about his trip on a motorcycle from his original home in Manitoba through the Midwest, Mexico, Central America, and South America to the southern tip of Chili - a trip which took him about 8 months to finish. I am about halfway through this book and find it humorous and fascinating including his visits of some Mennonite colonies along the way as well as repairing his motorcycle or finding someone to make the repairs. He includes a lot of Mennonite history of both the Russian Mennonites and the Swiss/German Mennonites – why they picked up and moved so often, where they settled, and how they started from scratch after each relocation. I’m enjoying learning Mennonite history through this book and reading about his travels. This is also a most-readable book which I also recommend.