Women Unbound Challenge: Reading list and recommendations

I’m joining one more challenge but this one runs through next year so that’s good.

I have read a lot of books with the “Women Unbound” theme but mostly they have been memoirs. So I thought I’ll do a list for people who are interested. I have divided the list into 2 sections “read” and “to-read”. “to-read” will be my list for this challenge.

My “to-read” list
This list is tentative; I read whatever I feel like at that moment. But so far I have these in mind.

• The Story of my Life by Helen Keller

• Samira and Samir by Siba Shakib

• My Feudal Lord by Tehmina Durrani

• Their Eyes were watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

• The Complete Persepolis by Satrapi Marjani

• Educating Esme by Codell, Esme Raji

• Goodbye Tsugumi by Banana Yoshimoto

• Madras on Rainy Days by Samina Ali

All these books are from my TBR pile. But I will obviously buy or borrow books if Singapore has a good library or a bookstore, so this list could change. Do let me know if you feel any of these books do not fit with the challenge. Also, I’m not sure how many books I’ll get to read but I’m keeping my options open and my reading list long

Recommendations for the challenge:
A Thousand Splendid Suns: It’s not exactly feminist fiction but it is about 2 women trying to survive in the most difficult of times. It also shows the relationship between Laila and Mariam beautifully. A great story of getting through the daily horrors that life offers and coming out of it with hope.

Do They Hear You When You Cry by Fauziya Kassindja: I picked this book up because it was about an African girl and honestly I did not expect much from it, mostly because I had never heard of this book before. I ended up loving this book. It’s about a young girl who runs from her home and ends up in America as an illegal immigrant. The story follows her struggle to stay in a foreign country and make them understand the difficulties and the dangers she would face if she is sent home. She also spends some time in the refuge prison. Turns out this was a landmark case in American Refugee history. Other than the fact that her story had to be told in whatever form possible, I also liked the way the book was written. It describes her life before she runs away from her home and also her life as a refugee in the U.S. This is a very heartfelt and a sad memoir but with lots of hope. I remember not liking something about the book but I really cannot recall what.

Not Without My Daughter by Betty Mahmoody: One of my favorite books of all time. (From Amazon) Betty Lover met the perfect “dark stranger” in a Michigan hospital. Her Iranian therapist, Dr. Sayyed Bozorg Mahmoody, became her husband and the father of their daughter, Mahtob. Despite the vicissitudes of the Iran-U.S. hostage crisis, Betty and he flourished until their summer “vacation” in Iran in 1984. The next year and a half were a nightmare. Betty and Mahtob, held hostage by Mahmoody and his family, were subjected to Islamic fundamentalism, Persian nationalistic fanaticism, and a life of squalor.

Mayada, Daughter of Iraq: One Woman’s Survival Under Saddam Hussein by Jean Sasson: Again an awesome book. I cried a lot while reading it. (From Amazon) in 1999, Mayada was arrested by Saddam Hussein’s secret police for allegedly printing anti-regime pamphlets in her Baghdad print shop and imprisoned for nearly a month in Iraq’s brutal Baladiyat Prison. Sasson’s candid, straightforward account of Mayada’s time among the 17 “shadow women” crammed into Cell 52 gives readers a glimpse of the cruelty and hardship endured by generations of Iraqis. Mayada stares down this ugliness as soon as she’s yanked from her meticulously run shop into the prison’s interrogation room: “She saw chairs with bindings, tables stacked high with various instruments of torture…. But the most frightening pieces of… equipment were the various hooks that dangled from the ceiling. When Mayada glanced to the floor beneath those hooks, she saw splashes of fresh blood, which she supposed were left over from the torture sessions she had heard during the night.” Almost all Jean Sasson books fall under this category.

Wild Swansby Jung Chung: This is another great book that documents the life of 3 generations of Chinese Women-mother, daughter and grandmother, during the regime of Mao. It does get a little tedious and overbearing at times but over all it’s a very good book. If you were like me and didn’t know anything about the times of Mao, this book will provide lots of information. Review Link.

Empress Orchidand The Last Empressby Anchee Min: These are 2 books in a series but you can read the first book without reading the second. These books chronicle the life of the last Empress of China as fictionalized by Anchee min. They are both great books imho. Here are my review links: Empress Orchid and The Last Empress of China.

Abandonedby Anya Peters: This book is about sexual abuse. And seriously, the abuse scenes are so descriptive and detailed that I felt myself cringe a number of times. Her story is very heartbreaking. Anya Peters is a really good writer though. Read it only you can stomach such issues.

The Color Purpleby Alice Walker: I read this book long back and I don’t remember much about it other than the fact that I loved it. It did take some time to get into but it’s a great book if you like the writing style.

Prisoner of Tehranby Marina Nemat: This is what I wrote about this book a few months back. “Marina shows amazing courage in the midst of all this chaos. It is difficult to believe that a person who has seen so much hatred and destruction in the name of Islam, to still have faith in God. But it is this faith that pulls her out of it all and keeps her sane. This book is a very sad reminder of what is or was happening around a certain part of the world when we were comfortably sleeping in our beds or going about our normal duties. Read this to know about a time and place so different from what most of us have lived and also marvel at the courage of a woman called Marina Nemat.” Read my review here.

Cutting Looseby Nadine Dajani: Okay, this ones fiction and a little chicklit-ish but it does fall under this category. As I said about this book “As the story progresses, all three of them find the courage required to cut loose their ties from the past, enter into a whole new and challenging territory, leaving something that is painful but familiar behind”. It’s a classic tale of 3 women from different backgrounds who face problems similar to our own. That’s in fact what made me resonate with the novel more. It’s could be a tale of any 3 women.

Some more recommendations from Janaki@twistntales
1) Diddi by Ira Pande
2) The Book of Rachel by Esther David
3) Changing by Liv Ullman
4) Refuge
5) Janani-ed. by Rinki Bhattacharya
6) My Story by Kamala Das
7) A year by the sea by Joan Anderson
8 ) Pitching my tent by Anita Diamant

That’s about it I guess. How about you? Are you joining this challenge?

Xombies by Walter Greatshell: for R.I.P Challenge

Xombies by Walter Greatshell|August 3rd 2004 by Berkley|352 pages|Science Fiction

2 stars out of 5

About the book: Spreading at an astonishing speed, the “Agent X” virus transforms everyone it touches into maniacal monsters. Lulu Pangloss, one of the few as yet uninfected, flees to the last safe place on earth–but what’s awaiting her there is as unexpected, and as frightening, as what’s followed her.

My Review:
Xombies…What do I say about this book? I picked it up from a store because of the awesome cover and of course because it had Zombies. It does starts with some fun and gory zombie fighting that I was expecting from this book in the first place. The Zombies are created by a virus called Agent X which mysteriously affects women first.

17 year old Lulu and an old guy Mr. Cowper flee from their homes and go to a Navy base to find protection with the navy. Cowper is supposed to be Lulu’s father, the guy who ran away from her mother and someone whom Lulu had never met for the first 17 years of her life.

Circumstances lead to Lulu and Cowper running away together. But what they find at the Navy base is not protection but hundred’s of men and boys who Cowper suspects would be left behind once the Zombie defenses stop working and they invade the base as well. Cowper along with the men takes control of the Submarine which then sails (?) off to the Artic regions.

So far so good. I was really into the story until all the zombies were wiped out from the Submarine. But after that the Zombies kind of disappear for almost 200 pages of the book. That would have been okay if the rest of the book would have been good. But the Submarine descriptions were very tedious and I found myself very disinterested after that. I couldn’t picturize the descriptions and there was too much technical jargon. Honestly I skipped a lot of that section and it’s a huge section of the book.

The last hundred pages or so were really good but then again I was so bored with the middle section that I just wanted to finish the book. So I read the last 100 pages real fast which kind of led to me to missing out certain explanations of the Agent X that caused the Xombies. I found a few loopholes in the story but then again I said I skipped, so I’m not sure they were really loopholes.

The 2 stars are mainly because after the first 100 pages I lost interest in the book. Even the last 100 pages of the book could not revive my interest. But not wanting to be completely unfair, I will tell you what I liked in the book. I liked the writing style. The protagonist Lulu was a very street smart and intelligent girl whom I liked right from the start. The bond between father and daughter though not in the face was nicely developed. The Zombie sections, however few were awesome, so was all the action.

All I can say is that this book needs major editing, especially for the Submarine part.

This book is re-releasing this year with a different cover (which I don’t like much) and title XOMBIES: APOCALYPSE BLUES, with the sequel XOMBIES: APOCALYPTICON coming out in 2010, I think.

Another one down for R.I.P

It happened in Italy: Untold Stories of How the People of Italy Defied the Horrors of the Holocaust

Title: It happened in Italy
Author: Elizabeth Bettina
Hardcover: 384 pages
Publisher: Thomas Nelson (April 21, 2009)
Genre: Non-fiction
Rating: 2.5 out of 5

My Review:It happened in Italy shows a different side to Holocaust and the concentrations camps. Only the camps mentioned in this book are not located in Germany but in Italy. I don’t know about others, but I had no idea there were concentration camps in Italy. Neither did author Elizabeth Bettina.

The research starts when the author discovers her Catholic parents wedding photographs outside a church with a priest standing next to a Rabbi. Since the author’s grandmother was from Italy, she is surprised that she never heard about Jews send to concentration camps in Italy. So she decides to dig further and stumbles upon many stories of Jews who were given shelter in Italy and saved from Hitler’s madness.

Elizabeth attends a lecture given by a holocaust survivor Walter (name?). She is surprised when she learns that he was in Campagna, small Italian town during the World War. Together with Walter and then Vince, who is an encyclopedia in everything holocaust, Elizabeth embarks on a journey to find and record the lives of all those who were in Italian concentration camps and were still alive.

Some parts of the book describe Elizabeth’s search for those people and then talking them to Italy to revisit those camps and the people who had once sheltered them (she also managed to meet the Pope in the process) and parts of it deal with stories from various survivors. The book is filled with many photographs and documents that prove the story.

The stories were all very repetitive and after a couple of them I could tell what was going to come next. The gist is that Italians were very good to the Jews at a time when everyone else was throwing them in German concentration camps. They defied official orders, hid the Jews in their homes and basically helped them survive and escape. The story needs to be told, yes, but frankly after around 150 pages I was bored. I rolled my eyes every time the author said ‘Amazing’ and ‘Unbelievable’. Yes, I get it. It was amazing but saying it on every alternate page was a little too much.

The tagline says ‘Untold Stories of How the People of Italy Defied the Horrors of the Holocaust’. But I found this book to be more about Elizabeth’s journey and her story about finding these people. I would have liked a more personal account from the survivors. Also, there were so many names just thrown in for no reason. First of all, they are Italian names and are difficult to remember. So why throw in the name of a person who had nothing to do with the main story and who was not mentioned more than once? It was a little annoying. Also, a little modesty would have really helped.

Finally, as I said, the story needs to be told but in a better way.

The Thirteenth Tale

The “High Expectations” tag is a huge burden to carry for any book. But The thirteenth Tale does not disappoint even for a moment. I subconsciously kept waiting for the moment when I would say to myself that this book is good but not as good as I heard it was. That moment never came. In fact it was so much better than I thought it would be.

First of all, how can any book lover not love this book? With the beautiful writing and the numerous passages on libraries and books and stories and Jane Eyre, it’s very difficult to disappoint. I stopped underlying phrases that caught my fancy after 20 pages. I would have ended up highlighting 50% of the book.

The Thirteenth Tale starts with a letter from a very famous author, Vida Winter to Margaret who is an amateur biographer and whose father owns an antique book store. Winter does not request but orders Margaret to come to her villa so that they can start working on her biography together. She entices Margaret with the words, ‘Tell me the truth‘. But Margaret is skeptical. After numerous false biographies of Winter already in the market, she is not sure that she’ll get to know the truth.

But she takes a chance. She reaches Vida Winter’s villa and finds a frail and dying woman. As they start working towards the biography, Vida Winter spins a tale of her past. A past that is terrifying, sad and so ugly that it deserves to be kept in wraps.

The Thirteenth Tale was like a roller coaster ride. It’s a gothic style mystery that will keep you turning the pages late into the night. It leaves a lot of blank spaces and doubts in your mind and you start guessing and doubting and making sense of the story with Margaret.

The only thing I didn’t get was probably Margaret’s obsession with her own past. I understand why her relationship with her mother is the way it is, but what I don’t understand is her obsession and attachment with her twin sister whom she has never even seen. Another thing was that I thought Vida’s Winter’s story was purposely told in a scandalous way. The thing that Margaret discovers at the end should ideally be told with the main story itself. I don’t see how you can omit that. But then that’s how Vida Winters character was like. She was a storyteller and she told the story in the most interesting and haunting way she could. That’s the only explanation I could come up with.

My favorite character though was neither Margaret nor Ms. Winter. It was Aurelius, the baking giant. He was the one whom I felt most sympathy for and I was definitely satisfied with the ending that the author gave him.

Definitely 5 out of 5 stars.

This book was for Carl’s R.I.P Challenge. Thank you Carl. I have no idea how long this book would have gathered dust on my shelf if not for your challenge

Favorite passages:
I read old novels. The reason is simple: I prefer proper endings. Marriages and deaths, noble sacrifices and miraculous restorations, tragic separations and unhoped-for reunions, great falls and dreams fulfilled; these, in my view, constitute an ending worth the wait. They should come after adventures, perils, dangers and dilemmas, and wind everything up nice and neatly. Endings like this are to be found more commonly in old novels than new ones, so I read old novels.

There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner. Wind themselves around your limbs like spider silk, and when you are so enthralled you cannot move, they pierce your skin, enter your blood, numb your thoughts. Inside you they work their magic.

My gripe is not with lovers of the truth but with truth herself. What succor, what consolation is there in truth, compared to a story? What good is truth, at midnight, in the dark, when the wind is roaring like a bear in the chimney? When the lightning strikes shadows on the bedroom wall and the rain taps at the window with its long fingernails? No. When fear and cold make a statue of you in your bed, don’t expect hard-boned and fleshless truth to come running to your aid. What you need are the plump comforts of a story. The soothing, rocking safety of a lie.

Our lives are so important to us that we tend to think the story of them begins with our birth. First there was nothing, then I was born…Yet that is not so. Human lives are not pieces of string that can be separated out from a knot of others and laid out straight. Families are webs. Impossible to touch one part of it without setting the rest vibrating. Impossible to understand one part without having a sense of the whole.

and many more…

Screw Cupid: The Sassy Girl’s Guide to Picking Up Hot Guys

Title: Screw Cupid: The Sassy Girl’s Guide to Picking Up Hot Guy
Author: Samantha Scolfield
Publisher: Experiment, The (September 1, 2009)
Genre: Self-help

About the book: Screw Cupid is the guide for every woman ready to take her dating life into her own hands. Samantha Scholfield has many years of dating experience, and the techniques and strategies she reveals here were developed via extensive trial and error – and by consulting and collaborating with hundreds of women (and many men), and by refining the best of the extensive pickup advice that already circulates among men. The result: perfectly calibrated guidance on how to initiate a conversation – anytime, anywhere – and get right to a date, all without the guy knowing he’s being picked up.

I don’t usually read self-help books, but something in this book made me want to read it. I never thought I would ever rate a book on how to pick up hot guys, but here it is – 4 out of 5.

I decided to try a different approach with the review and so I asked my lovely readers to ask a few questions. I’ve answered them as best as I could and without spoiling the book too much.

Veens: Can teens [in college] really use the advice? If so, I would like to see a few examples of advices
I don’t think this book is aimed towards college going teens but then you can always customize right? The book mentions how to initiate conversations in bars or say bookstores. But there is a section at the beginning where the author mentions a mistake she did in high school. Something on the lines of ‘do not stalk the guy you like’ which I feel is the mistake so many of the girls do But as I said one can always customize and adapt.

Stacy: would be curious about what they say about where to meet someone these days. I have so many friends finding dates (sometimes souses) online.
It mentions a lot of places actually. Bars, bookstores, parties etc. In fact, there is a list of places that tell you where to meet guys. Obviously not all are feasible, but most are. The author mentions online dating too and she also gives a very good way to contact guys through dating sites which would help them notice your message among the many others they might get. I really liked that advice which in spite of falling on the “common-sense” side is overlooked by many girls.

Care: DO tell us the sug that seems the most daring idea and the one that is the most ridiculous! Any that you will/want to try and then you MUST go apply that knowledge, come back and report EVERYTHING — we want to know all the juice details!
I don’t think there was any ridiculous idea but for me approaching a group of guys that also had a girl in it would be daring. But then the author also says it’s an advance step I’m actually going to give this book to a friend of mine who is desperately looking out for a descent guy. I could ask her for a guest post to fulfill our needs of gossip and juicy details

Jackie: I’d want to know if this was funny and if you tried any of the tips – did they work?!! I love a bit of gossip!
Oh well, I’ve just read it, so you’ll have to wait for the gossip. But yes, this book was funny at times and always entertaining. Even if you are not looking to pick up hot guys, you will definitely find yourself nodding at mistakes you did once or have seen someone else do. But the author has tried every tip she has mentioned in the book and vouches that they work if tried correctly.

Trish: How does one gain the confidence to ask a guy out? Should she be straight forward or try to be friends with the guy first? (And I’m part of that camp that thinks girls and guys cannot be just friends!). Anything NOT to do?
Definitely a lot of do’s and don’ts here and also a lot of busting of myths. This book is basically intended towards picking up guys for a date. But she also tells us how to approach a guy without actually suggesting anything and gradually going ahead from there. I think the best “NOT” was to not stand with a group of girls and wink or smile at a hot guy across the room and expect him to approach you. However absurd it may sound I have seen this happening. And it almost never works. Guys will rarely approach a girls group just because you seemed interested in him.

Eva: I suppose I want to know what you thought the five best suggestions from the book were
–>Never settle for a guy. If you don’t like a comment he made, loose his number.
–>Have a lot of guys to go out on dates, so that you always have options and in turn don’t think you have to settle. But then, I’m really not sure how feasible this advice is.
–>How to approach a guy in the first place without it being too awkward for the both of you. The opening lines examples were great. Some were weird (I would never try them), but they do give you a good direction to start with.
–>A huge list of places to find guys.
–>A small but superb suggestion for online dating. I wish this part was covered more in detail though.

Ceri: What do you think would be the most important lesson you’ve learned from the book?
Number one in Eva’s answer. I think it’s very important not to “settle” thinking you’ll never find a better guy. There are a lot of guys out there. You just need to put yourself out there and approach as many guys you like and then filter. And don’t forget to have a blast in the process. The initial rejections will hurt but you learn from the process and move on.

Melody: What do you think of the advice given? Would you recommend this book to your readers?
I thought the advice was very practical and definitely something that can be used. And the author’s voice comes off as friendly without sounding full of herself. I guess if women could customize certain things, this advice is definitely the best I’ve seen around. I recommend this book to anyone who is willing to take things in her hand instead of cribbing that there are no good guys around. May be that’s true, but at least you could say that after trying. Read this book, try out the advise and if it still doesn’t work, I guess email the author. At the end of the book, there’s an FAQ section with questions from women who have tried the things in the book but are still unsuccessful. The author explains exactly what went wrong with the approach, pointing out the small mistakes that might get overlooked otherwise. But having said that, I’m not really sure the advice could work everywhere. It seems to be targeted for big cities where you probably won’t run into the same guys over and over again.

So yes, it’s definitely worth trying out with a little caution and adapting it to the situation you are in.

Thank you Lisa for the opportunity to read and review this book.

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R.I.P. IV

Okay, I have succumbed to this challenge hosted by Carl. I had watched it from the sidelines last time. I have already committed to so many challenges that I was sure I would not sign up for any more for the rest of the year. But alas!!! Just look at that button? Isn’t it awesome?

But…I’m still not going to over commit. I’ve reduced the ARC’s drastically and I have decided to reduce my TBR pile too. So I have a list of about 30 books from my TBR that I’m planning to finish.

So I’ve filtered the books that I think fit in this challenge. Here they are:

• Xombies by Walter Greatshell: Spreading at an astonishing speed, the “Agent X” virus transforms everyone it touches into maniacal monsters. Lulu Pangloss, one of the few as yet uninfected, flees to the last safe place on earth–but what’s awaiting her there is as unexpected, and as frightening, as what’s followed her.
• Sweet Miss Honeywell’s revenge by Kathryn Reiss: Zibby Thorne doesn’t know what possessed her to buy an antique dollhouse–she doesn’t even like dolls. But when her friends and family start having bizarre accidents clearly connected to the dollhouse, she can’t ignore the menacing structure any longer. Zibby is sure that one particularly creepy doll in a gray dress is somehow responsible for the trouble. She discovers the doll is controlled by the spirit of “sweet” Miss Honeywell, a vengeful governess who seeks to control Zibby and her friends from beyond the grave. They must find a way to stop Miss Honeywell before her wrath becomes deadly.
• Interview with the vampire by Anne Rice: Here are the confessions of a vampire. Hypnotic, shocking, and chillingly erotic, this is a novel of mesmerizing beauty and astonishing force—a story of danger and flight, of love and loss, of suspense and resolution, and of the extraordinary power of the senses.
• Un Lun Dun by China Miéville: It is London through the looking glass, an urban Wonderland of strange delights where all the lost and broken things of London end up . . . and some of its lost and broken people, too–including Brokkenbroll, boss of the broken umbrellas; Obaday Fing, a tailor whose head is an enormous pin-cushion, and an empty milk carton called Curdle. Un Lun Dun is a place where words are alive, a jungle lurks behind the door of an ordinary house, carnivorous giraffes stalk the streets, and a dark cloud dreams of burning the world. It is a city awaiting its hero, whose coming was prophesied long ago, set down for all time in the pages of a talking book.When twelve-year-old Zanna and her friend Deeba find a secret entrance leading out of London and into this strange city, it seems that the ancient prophecy is coming true at last. But then things begin to go shockingly wrong.
• The girl with the dragon tattoo by Stieg Larsson: A spellbinding amalgam of murder mystery, family saga, love story, and financial intrigue. It’s about the disappearance forty years ago of Harriet Vanger, a young scion of one of the wealthiest families in Sweden . . . and about her octogenarian uncle, Henrik, determined to know the truth about what he believes was her murder.
• The thirteenth tale by Diane Setterfield
• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Do let me know if any of the above does not fit in the Challenge. I’m a little confused about The girl with the dragon tattoo and The thirteenth tale. Even Un Lun Dun for that matter.

Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman and 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill is for the short stories. I’m not sure if I can join it but I’ll definitely give it a shot. I have read a couple of stories from each.

I would probably commit for 2 books now but I can modify it to 4 later right?

Anyway I’m excited. Are you joining the challenge?

Carrie by Sephen King – for the 4Rs Challenge

Title: Carrie
Author: Stephen King
Genre: Horror
Published: 1974

2 weeks before the round one of 4Rs Challenge closed, I realized that I haven’t even decided what to read for the Challenge. If you remember I had done a post on it where I had listed all the horror books that were recommended. I had asked for a few of those books in the bookstore but most were out of stock and a few were not even in their database. Stephen King’s name came up repeatedly. I had tried reading a short story collection by Stephen King once but remember not being very impressed by it. I tried reading one more ‘The Eyes of the Dragon’ which although I liked, was not enough to entice me to read more of his books.

So the point here is that I read Carrie only because of the 4Rs Challenge. I was recommended ‘The Pet Semetary-Stephen King’ by Jennifer and Sandy but out of all the books only that book was out of stock and I was in no mood to check out another bookstore. So I settled on Carrie which Shelby had recommended in the comments.

————————————————–
Let me start by saying, ‘What a book’. I loved it. Thankfully I hadn’t seen the movie and did not know much of the plot either, so I enjoyed this book thoroughly.

Carrie is the story of a 16 year old girl who is constantly tortured in her school and is always the object of jokes and ridicule. Her mother is a tyrant with twisted views on religion. She’s the reason why Carrie is never really able to fit into school. There is an incident in the locker room where Carrie is again a subject of ridicule but on a higher scale of embarrassment. It triggers a series of events which leads to what is called The Scene of the Crime, the Prom night.

Carrie has Telekinesis, a scientific condition where a person can move objects when particularly distressed or in anger. What happens at the Prom night is the culmination of everything. The book is told in present tense where we learn what exactly happened, and intermingled with the story are the various study reports, interviews and articles on Carrie’s condition-telekinesis, in which the scientists are more interested.

This book was a page turner and a great thriller. Although you come to know very early in the novel about what happened on Prom night, I didn’t feel it spoiled the book one bit. As I said this was more of a first rate thriller for me than a horror book. The only thing that scared me a little was the picture of Carrie on the back cover.

That said I did find the book a little unsettling. I found her mother very unsettling because I’m sure there could be women like her in this world and being even 50% like her would be an awful thing. I appreciated the writing style and Stephen king’s ability to get into the mind of a 17 year old. I’m definitely going to look for more books by Stephen King, may be I’ll see if Pet Semetary is available.

4.5 out of 5 stars. Thank you so much to everyone who recommended me books for the 4Rs Challenge, I will definitely get to them at some point.

Some interesting bits:
–It is one of the most frequently banned books in United States schools and the film version was banned in Finland.
–Carrie is the first Stephen King novel to be published.
–He wrote this book because some woman said, ‘You write all those macho things, but you can’t write about women.’ I said, ‘I’m not scared of women. I could write about them if I wanted to.’
–Finally, he says about Carrie-”In retrospect it reminds me of a cookie baked by a first grader—tasty enough, but kind of lumpy and burned on the bottom”.

In fact, go read the entire Wikipedia article if you have already seen the movie or read the book. It’s very interesting.

The Autobiography of a Tibetan Monk by Palden Gyatso

Title: The Autobiography of a Tibetan Monk
Author: Palden Gyatso
Genre: Memoir, History(Tibet)
Translated from the Tibetan by Tsering Shakya

Palden Gyatso, a Tibetan monk, was arrested after the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950. He was arrested when he was 28 years old and was released in 1992, when he was almost 60. This is his story.

Palden Gyatso joined a Monastery in 1943 at the age of 10 and decided to dedicate his life to religious studies. He recited prayers, learnt the scriptures and generally went about doing what monks usually do. Things started to change around 1950 when China invaded Tibet under the leadership of Mao.

Many Tibetan’s were arrested for minor reasons or for no reason at all. Palden Gyatso was one of them. The Chinese took away land, stopped Tibetan’s from worshipping and started spreading the teachings of Mao, all under the name of reform. They wanted to introduce so called “socialism” and bring everyone to one level. Palden Gyatso suffered a lot in the prison, mainly because he was the son of a rich landlord and therefore someone who enjoyed a lot of privileges in the “old” Tibet. But as far as he could see these were just ways to control Tibet and its people.

Palden Gyatso describes the prison horrors and the atrocities committed by the Chinese. And considering he was transferred many times to various prisons, its obvious this was the state everywhere. Even the slightest mistake could lead to a death sentence. He describes the fear and the helplessness that took hold of every Tibetan during that time. This is one of the many passages that describes this very helplessness:

It was far safer for everyone to forget their loved ones. We all learned to live as though we were orphans, with no parents or brothers or sisters or even friends in the outside world. This was perhaps easier for me as a monk than it was for some other prisoners. I was used to being solitary. I have no strong ties, no memories of a wife or children tugging at my heart. There were many cases of a wives remarrying in order to prove that they had completely severed ties with their reactionary husbands. The Party liked this sort of public declaration.

When he was released, he decided not to stay in Tibet any longer because he feared that the Chinese might not hesitate to put him in prison again. He escaped to Nepal and from there to Dharamshala, India where the revered Dalai Lama had made his home after running away from Tibet. I have been to Dharamshala before and I have seen many monks there, probably some of them were the ones escaped from Tibet. I have also had the privilege of seeing the Dalai Lama but I had no idea how revered and worshipped he was by the Tibetans. I mean I knew but I am just amazed by the scale of it.

The Autobiography of a Tibetan monk was definitely an eye opener. Considering Tibet is so close to India, I should be ashamed that I knew so little about the Tibetan struggle for Independence. Any country does not have the right to rule other countries under any pretext whatsoever. Its high time China realizes that Tibet is a country of the Tibetans and they don’t want the Chinese there.

I have so much respect for Palden Gyatso and so many others like him who have suffered tremendously but still fought against their oppressors. This book is not only an Autobiography of a monk, it’s a tribute and a voice for all those who have suffered and continue to suffer.

Another passage from the book:
The human body can bear immeasurable pain and yet recover. Wounds can heal. But once your spirit is broken, everything falls apart. So we did not allow ourselves to feel dejected. We drew strength from our convictions and, above all, from our belief that we were fighting for justice and for the freedom of our country.

Note: I am assuming the book on the right hand side ‘Fire Under the Snow’ is the same book with a different name. I have googled a little on it and from the excerpts it seems it is.

4.25 out of 5 stars.

Other Informative links on the Tibetan cause:
Final Document of the 2009 Sino-Tibetan Conference ‘Finding Common Ground’
A news article on Palden Gyatso after his release
Free Tibet site

I’m adding this book to the World Citizen Challenge (Memoirs, World Issues, History) and The Orbis Terrarum Challenge (Author: Tibet)

A Hundred and One Days: A Baghdad Journal

A Hundred And One Days by Asne Seierstad

Genre: Non-Fiction

Iraq’s deterioration as a nation started in 1980 because of the 8 year Iran-Iraq war started by Saddam Hussein and then the disastrous invasion of Kuwait 2 years after the war. And then there was the 12 years UN sanction.

Asne Seierstad goes on a 10 day visa as a reporter in Baghdad for Scandinavian, German, and the Dutch media. She is there to cover a possible war between Iraq and America. But Iraq is in the clutches of Saddam Hussein and the journalists are not allowed to go anywhere without a minder and without getting written permission from the Ministry of Information, which is like keeping watch on the foreign journalists and what they could possibly leak to the outside world. Saddam Hussein wanted the entire world to know that his people love and respect him and that Iraq has prospered under his regime.

Asne is caught between wanting to write something of value and fearing the wrath of the Iraqi Ministry and being kicked out of the country. And she wants to be there for the scoop and the major stories when war hits.

I am here to find dissidents, a secret uprising, gagged intellectuals, Saddam’s opponents. I am here to point out human rights violations, expose oppression. And I’m reduced to being a tourist.

This book is divided into 3 sections -Before, during and after.
When Asne came to Iraq, she had only 10 days visa and like other journalists she wanted to extend her stay as long as possible. The things she did to extend her visa and also to come back after leaving Iraq once after her Visa expired, was very interesting. You can’t help but admire her persistence.

Iraq’s citizens are preparing for war, some are leaving the country, and some are stocking food and other essential things in case the war lasts longer. As Asne slowly and steadily goes into the heart of the city, she gets snippets of what exactly is beneath the surface. And then one day, the inevitable happens.

At four in the morning Bush’s ultimatum expires. At five-thirty the first bang is heard. I am wide awake, my heart thumping. I sneak out onto the balcony, first crouching in case of missiles, then standing up. Powerful impacts, air-craft noise and vigorous shooting from the Iraqi anti-aircraft missiles can be heard. From the balconies above I hear a Babelesque confusion of voices-Spanish, Arabic, English, French. We all stand staring out into the half-light and see the dim outline of the Presidential palace on the opposite side of the Tigris.

Most of the Iraqi’s secretly want to get rid of Saddam Hussein so in a way they are waiting for the Americans to start a war. Bush had promised to bomb only military sites. So they think they are safe. But once the war starts, things start to get ugly. Hundreds of innocent citizens are killed. The destruction, the mayhem caused is unbelievable. And so is the Bush bashing.

It’s very difficult to stop because I don’t want to give away everything. Can you tell I loved A Hundred and One Days? It read like a thriller. I got insights into how journalists report in war zones. It was fascinating and scary. Asne Seierstad is one brave woman.

Reading this book was like lifting a cloud of doubt and confusion that had settled itself in my mind after watching tons of conflicting news and documentaries over the years about the American Invasion of Iraq and the Saddam Hussein regime.

Its not that I know everything now, but I believe I know every side of the situation and can now watch or read one side of it without being confused or without getting anything else I read about it in the way. Why did some Iraqi’s rejoice and some mourn the defeat of Saddam Hussein? Why were Iraqi’s so against the Americans when they liberated them from a tyrant? You’ll understand all this and more when you read this book. Finally, my heart goes out to thousands of Iraqi people who suffered for years under Saddam Hussein and are still suffering in one way or the other. I really hope peace prevails soon.

4.5 out of 5. Highly Recommended.

Oh by the way, Asne Seierstad is also the author of Bookseller of Kabul.

I am adding this to Orbis Terrarum Challenge. The author is from Norway

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Half Yearly Review…

I wanted to do Monday Musings this week, but somehow didn’t get the time. So I thought why not do a personal half-yearly review?

Last year I read around 40 books and I remember saying that I would love to read at least 50 books in 2009. And surprise surprise, I’ve already read 49. How cool is that. This makes me more than happy. I’ve also been really good at keeping track of what I read this year, with writing down books read month wise and actually linking them to their respective reviews. It’s really no work at all if you do it immediately.

These are my favorites so far.
There are 3 books with 5 stars (Jackie, I thought I had read the other 2 last year in December )
5 stars:

Mommy I’m still in here by Kate McLaughlin
My Father’s Paradise by Ariel Sabar
A damsel in distress by P.G.Wodehouse

4.5/ 4 stars

Things fall apart by Chinua Achebe
The last Empress by Anchee Min
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Crossed Wires by Rosy Thornton
Dragon’s Keep by Janet Lee Carey
Cutting Loose by Nadine Dajani
Nefertiti by Michelle Moran
Drawers and Booths by Ara 13
The map of a known word by Lisa Ann Sandell
Bad Girls dont die by Katie Alender
Secrets of a Summer night by Lisa Kleypas (Not Reviewed)
Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel
Triumph of Deborah by Eva Etzioni-Havely
The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
The Heretic Queen by Michele Moran
Saffron Dreams by Shaila abdullah
The Accidental Bestseller by Wendy Wax

Have you seen Swapna’s Review Database? I can only imagine how much work it must have taken.

What else?

Challenges

I have been so bad at these. When I joined them I did a nice separate page with all the buttons and links and all. But I guess I forgot to keep track. I did add a book to a challenge as and when I remembered.
I’ll just do a quick recap here and update the page along with this if I get the time. The ones not with the reviews have to be read.

• 2009 Pub Challenge

1. A Duke to die for by Amelia Grey
2. The Accidental Bestseller by Wendy Wax
3. Saffron Dreams by Shaila abdullah
4. That Went Well by Terrell Harris Dougan
5. The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
6. Falling in Love by Pauline Trent
7. Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel
8.
9.

• World Citizen Challenge

1. Mommy I’m still in here by Kate McLaughlin
(Memoir)
2. Wisdom of Whores by Elizabeth Pisani (Worldwide issues). I really want to read this book, but I don’t know when I’ll get the time.

• The Baker Street Challenge

1. The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle
2. The Hound of the Baskervilles

• Chunkster Challenge 09

1. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
2. The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
3. The House at Riverton

• Casual Classics 2009

1. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
2. Great Expectations
3. A trees grows in Brooklyn
4. Little Woman
(This list could change)

• Orbis Terratum Challenge (I’ve been really lacking in adding the links on the Challenge site. Sorry Bethany)

1. Saffron Dreams by Shaila abdullah (Author born in Pakistan)
2. Triumph of Deborah by Eva Etzioni-Havely (Author born in Austira)
3. Cutting Loose by Nadine Dajani (Author born in Lebanon)
4. Things fall apart by Chinua Achebe (Author born in Nigeria)
5. The last Empress by Anchee Min (Author born in China)
6. A damsel in distress by P.G.Wodehouse (Author born in England)

• 4R’s Challenge

1.

How are you doing?