New Book to Read

So yesterday I went to the bookstore to buy a birthday present for someone else, I got sidetracked like I always do and came out with new reading material for myself.

First on the list, The Great Mortality by John Kelly, an intimate history of the Black death, the most devastating plague of all time. The back cover reads as follows:

La moria grandissima began its terrible journey across the European and Asian continents in 1347, leaving unimaginable devastation in its wake. Five years later, twenty-five million people were dead, felled by the scourge that would come to be called the Black Death. The Great Mortality is the extraordinary epic account of the worst natural disaster in European history - a drama of courage, cowardice, misery, madness, and sacrifice that brilliantly illuminates humankind's darkest days when an old world ended and a new world was born.

I read the introduction last night and was already starting to get quite engaged so we'll see how the book as a whole progresses. Apparently it's author was intrigued by "...original source material, the literature of the Great Mortality - the chronicles, letters, and reminiscences written by contemporaries..." It seems to have gotten some pretty decent reviews and I guess I can blame my Mother for being interested in reading "histories". Definitely not a bad thing considering my new favourite past-times!