Barefoot in Baghdad by Manal M. Omar

Books like this become must reads for Westerners because all of us need to put a face on Iraqis and Muslims. We need to understand that in so many ways they and especially women are the victims of war.

Manal Omar has worked tirelessly for the rights of women around the world but she clearly has left her heart in Baghdad. She wrote this memoir to document her time spent in Iraq. It is part harrowing adventure in a war torn country, part how-to manual on responding to women's needs in times of destruction, and part Islamic love story.

The writing is at its most compelling when she tells individual stories of women she meets, their often horrifying problems, and the struggles she has to help each one.

The memoir turned into a page turner at the end as she fled Iraq and realized her love for a man with whom she had been working. Seeing how two Muslims would manage to find love and pursue a life together in Islamic culture was also fascinating.

This is an early review book so I have a copy if anyone would like to borrow it.

Breaking Night by Liz Murray

Breaking Night: 

Urban slang for staying up 

through the night until the sun rises.

Breaking Night by Liz Murray is rightly being compared to Jeannette Walls gripping account of her rise out of poverty in The Glass Castle.  Both memoirs feature a harrowing tale of a childhood in hell, and how each woman manages to pull herself up out of despair and create a life for themselves.

Even though these tales are similar, Breaking Night does feel new and fresh and original as Liz Murray does a great job of telling her own very authentic tale.

Recently, I read a memoir writing book that cautioned the writer never to  paint oneself as a victim. It is more important to tell your story with regard to your own truth, but never let it devolve into self-pity. Liz Murray has painted herself as an authentic believable human who has overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles  in rising from living on the streets and rejecting all formal schooling, to finishing school and being accepted at Harvard.  One of the most touching scenes I have ever read comes after a newspaper story of her is printed, men and women from all over the country come to her and offer to help.  A wall she had built for herself between us and them came toppling down.  She could not believe the generosity of people who she had never even met.

Equally as touching are the scenes she paints with her mother.  Even though her mother was an addict and refused to care for her children in any of the ways that we have come to regard as normal parenting, Liz loves her mother.  Liz's mom, in her own screwed up way, loves her right back. I loved that I always understood that.  As a reader, I never hated her parents, even though plenty of people probably should.  

Just as The Glass Castle kept me turning pages so did Breaking Night.  Don't be fooled into thinking this is the same story though. It is very different and very much worth the read.  Liz Murray has gone on to become a motivational speaker and owns a company which encourages people to be all they can be.  An important message for any of us.

Hoarding and Stuff

I have been thinking a lot lately about stuff.  My stuff, your stuff and all the stuff we have together.  I think we can all agree that we humans have created a lot of stuff.  There has been a lot of press lately about this guy named Dave and his 100 thing challenge.  Dave writes about paring the things of his life down to 100 and even lists them on his website.  (I love lists, so it was kind of fun to see what he deemed necessary.)  He set up his challenge, so of course he gets to set the rules which included all his books counting as 1 thing (library=300 plus books) and all his underwear counting as 1 thing ( for sanitary reasons).

I am not sure what it was about his challenge or about the many articles generated because of the challenge, but I immediately began to defend my ownership of things.  It is not bad to have things...as long as they don't get in the way of life or loving your family or take precedence over the important stuff.  But hey, I like my books and the art on my walls and the cool old card catalog I bought at the surplus store.  My closet is not as full as some, but I clean it out about once a year and send stuff to charity.  I like saving mementoes for posterity: report cards and child's handprints made into turkeys, birthday cards and little scribbles on napkins that remind you of a fun time you had bowling.  It all seems to be part of a time capsule and someday someone will piece together the story of you by what you leave behind.

Whenever I hear about someone getting rid of their things and living a simpler life, I feel a little sad inside.  Who will speak up for the stuff?  Surely you can be simple and still have some teapots and linen napkins and a junk drawer filled with treasures.  I have an antique desk that I no longer use and I opened it this afternoon to see what was there.  It was a perfect collection of who I was 16 years ago when I used the desk last: a party favor from a wedding, a picture of my dear Aunt, directions for how to write a manuscript for Harlequin romance novels, some stationary and pens, a little doll and a book mark.  This desk is a preserved piece of me.  I cherish it and I close the desk...happy to know it will always be there.

Anyway, as I am thinking about stuff and this seeming war on my stuff and how I might pare down even a little, I picked up this fascinating book on people who are exactly the opposite of the 100 things man.  The book is aptly titled Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things.  It turns out, according to this book, there are legions of people who have so much stuff it has become a pathology.  It seems I am the last to know that there is an entire A & E series devoted to people who hoard stuff and the vermin who live in their homes because there is so much stuff that it becomes a natural haven for critters.  Wow.  I had no idea.

The unsettling part is that although I don't think anyone could classify me as a hoarder -- my house is neat there are no pathways through the stuff.  I have only one pile and it is on my desk--I do relate to a lot of the characteristics of stuff.  I assign meaning to things that couldn't possibly have meaning.  I hang onto things for longer than most people would.  When I catch my husband throwing things away without my permission, I often retrieve it from the trash and wait to give it my own blessing.  Although on the hoarding scale of 1-10, I am barely a 1, it still feels a little awkward, my attatchement to things.  I guess I'll need to watch out for hoarding tendancies as I age.  I do want my kids to come and visit me.

Anyway,  this book is written by a pair of scientists, writing about this odd psychological disorder.  It is fascinating for all the reasons you might suspect.  I did try to watch an episode of Hoarders last week and it turned my stomach.  I couldn't watch. 

How about you?  Do you tend toward the hoarding behavior or the 100 things lifestyle?

Dreaming in Chinese by Deborah Fallows

"Chinese may be the most difficult language for a Westerner to learn," Deborah Fallows writes in a clever book of essays about how Chinese culture is reflected through its language.  Fallows loves languages and linguistics, and when she and her husband are sent to live in China for three years, she uses her time there to study Mandarin. 

The way she deals with this subject is not only fascinating, but it really does allow us great insights into China and her people.  She writes about what seems to westerners to be Chinese rudeness but is really thier way of being polite. She spends generous time with the subject of the difficulty of understanding the tones of Chinese language, and how her inability to articulate tones would often lead her into humorous situations.  She discusses gendered pronouns and how Chinese have difficulty with that concept.  She writes of the multitude of Chinese languages and how they are all tied together by the characters: people who cannot understand each other's language across China can read the same characters.  She has another essay on the development and complexity of Chinese characters. 

I marvel at the brilliant discoveries one can make about a culture when examining the intricacies of language.   I feel like this primer would have served me well just before I went to China this past spring.  My husband, who is a language maven, is next in line to read this.  Anyone who is interested in language and how it is revelatory would love this collection.  Has anyone who studied Arabic written the same book?  If you know of one I would like to hear of it.

I close with this quote from the end of the book which is how I felt about my small time in China and my new commitment to embracining Chinese Culture.

"I did inch away from being overwhlemed at such a massive,intense, overwhelming country, toward touching a few people one by one, and getting a little closer to thier lives, however small the increment.  This reward gave me at least the illusion that I belonged, if just for a little bit in this extraordinary country at this moment in history". 

Well said, Ms. Fallows.  I hope you continue your lifelong journey of understanding China.

Baby We Were Meant for Each Other by Scott Simon

Many thanks to the friends and family who heard the myriad of interviews that Scott Simon did for NPR and alerted me to his new book.  Memoir reader and adoptive parent that I am, I had the book ordered before it was even available for purchase.  I have read so many stories about adoption from China that I was eager to note how he could put a different spin on the story than had already been done.

Jiangxi Province

Simon simply told his own story as a backdrop to tell other adoption stories and make a case for the importance and naturalness of adoption.  He gives a short history of adoption and then interviews and tells stories of friends who were either adopted themselves or adopted children as adults.  Although all the stories were compelling, none were as weepy and lovely as his own.  Perhaps I am a bit biased since we share a very similar story.  His daughters both came from the same province as our lovely girl and we both spent a rainy morning traipsing to the Chinese Bureau for Adoption Affairs in Nanchang, China.

The most interesting part of the book is the  discussion of the ultimate contradiction in my life:  how do I celebrate the culture of my lovely Chinese daugher, but also recognize that it is her culture, because of thier policies and beliefs, that left her on the doorstep of the Yiyang Social Welfare Institute one morning in May?  Simon discusses this part with such passion that I was left breathless.  One day, when she is old enough to understand, I will read her from this book.  By then, we can only hope, the the world's attitudes towards girls will have changed and the orphanges in China are only a footnote in history books. If you are interested in the issue of gendercide, Scott Simon does not reveal anything new, but he states his truth quite eloquently. 

So dear readers, the book was wonderful.  I have written to Mr. Simon and asked him questions about how I can know what is true or not in the vast army of things I hear and am told about China and my daughter.  Since he is a journalist, I hope he has a good sense of the trustworthiness of sources.  I'll let you know if I hear from him.

If you are interested in this topic, the book is a worthwhile Sunday afternoon read.

Why I don't like e-books

Pretty!

• When you accidentally leave your e-book on the plane, you loose a $200 device and your entire library.
•  All e-books look the same.  I do judge books by their cover and the glossy picture on the front of the screen doesn’t do it for me.
• You can’t lend or borrow an e-book.
• You don’t know what others are reading, which means you can’t start conversations about a book, or find commonalities with other humans over books.   All our reading is suddenly done anonymously.  One of the pleasures of reading is sharing what you read.  I bought my husband a book for his birthday only to find out he had already downloaded it and was reading it. 
• Books look great lined up on shelves.  They have a feel and a smell and a place.  E-books are just pixels on screens. 
• Curling up with a good e-book doesn’t even sound like fun.
• When e-books take over we will loose the most important public gathering place: the public library. 
• When I drop my books, I pick them up.  If I drop a book reader, I have a pile of glass. 
•   Academics have a harder time citing passages from e-books since page numbers in e-books are all relative.
• What will happen to book fairs and book sales and book stores? 
• E-books don’t have a smell or a feel or carry nostalgia.  When my books are lined up on the shelves I can peruse them and remember where I was and who I was with at each one.  When I was 24 I backpacked through Europe and carried one book: a volume of women's travel adventures.  It lasted me most of the trip and started up several conversations with fellow female travelers.  I still have the book and I think of my adventure often when I see the book on my shelf.
• What about children's books like pop-ups and touchy-feely books and board books?  I'm not letting my toddler run around with a reading device in her hands.
• Everyone talks about the environment.  Does an e-book reader recycle?

 (I’ll grant you e-books are great for travelers, and for people with eyesight problems who can’t read small print, or people with small spaces who can’t have a huge library.  Sometimes I feel like one of those musty old writers who still write on typewriters and can’t see the benefit of a word processor.)  

Please comment and tell me about your vision of our book future.  Are they destined to end up only in resale shops like LPs?  Why do you like or not like the e-book reader?  

Some reading from the NY Times

Dear Readers,

The heat has officially worn me down and I haven't been able to focus too much on the reading life.  I am expecting a new book from the ER program, and I have started reading about a dozen books which are laying around my house collecting dust and overdue fines.  I have read two very good (and long articles) in the NY Times that I'd like to share. These are by a writer named Daphne Merkin.  The first was out last year and was about depression.  A friend who suffers sent it to me to help me understand.   The other I stumbled across a few weeks ago and found fascinating.  I do know people who have been seeing therapists for many years, and I wonder how they can function living so closely under the mirror.

Enjoy!

Esmerelda