Bookshelf Baubles

Title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family
Author: Alex Haley
Series: None
Genre: Non-Fiction


Roots is the story of Alex Haley's ancestors starting with Kunte Kinte, "the African" who was brought to America by the slave ships. It goes through 7 (kind of even like 8) generations back. It was made into a television mini series in 1977 and was epic. It rated as the third highest rated television program ever.

I remember seeing the mini series with my Dad when I was younger and it really moved me. I remember it in great detail even though it's probably been at least 15 years since I saw the series. It comes up every so often in conversation between my Dad and I and I have been thinking about getting him the series for Father's Day this year.

Recently, he made a mention about how it was based on a true story. What?! Somehow I had missed that. When I searched for the series on Amazon and then realized it was also a book - I couldn't help be read it immediately.

I know books are always better then movies/series, but I was amazed at the amount of information that is in the book that is not in the series. I also enjoyed the information added by Alex Haley at the end about his research and eventual writing of Roots.

There is some disagreement whether it is believed to be fact or actually fiction and Haley confessed to taking some passages from another book and eventually paid the author for copyright infringement. Either way, I enjoyed this book highly and can't wait for Dad to get his gift and watch it together.