Just finished reading Anthony Doerr’s historical novel, All The Light We Cannot See. This was a wonderful reading experience; Doerr’s writing is so expressive and beautiful. The book is the story of two parallel lives just before and during WWII. One is the story of a German boy, Werner, “recruited” into Hitler’s Nazi Youth. An orphan, he is accepted into an elite school because of his genius with radios. It is there he is trained as a soldier (he is 14 when he starts ) and hones his electronics skills. Meanwhile, the other parallel story is about a blind French girl, Marie-Laure, and her life with her father and uncle…

I read an entry on Benjamin Banneker from the book, “The Freedmen’s Book” (1865). This entry is about a man born in Ellicott City (then Ellicott Mills), MD in 1732. He built the first clock in America, after only having seen a watch. Then taught himself astronomy and developed an Almanac (again, first in the country): “When he was fifty-nine years old, he made an Almanac. It is a very difficult job to calculate all about the changes of the moon, and the rising and ebbing of the tides, and at what time the sun will rise and set every day, all the year round; and it was a much…