|
June 30
|
|
Ercildoun
is currently reading:
Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon--And the Journey of a Generation (Hardcover)
by Sheila Weller
bookshelves:
currently-reading
|
my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
|
| |
|
|
Ercildoun
added:
The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court (Hardcover)
by Jeffrey Toobin
|
my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
|
| |
Ercildoun said:
"Fascinating. How our Supreme Court, despite its inspired original construction, is so dependent upon the wisdom and personal integrity of the temporary inhabitants of the bench--and the wisdom of those who appoint them.
"
|
|
May 20
|
|
Ercildoun
is currently reading:
Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East (Hardcover)
by Robin Wright
bookshelves:
currently-reading
|
my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
|
| |
|
|
May 02
|
|
Ercildoun
gave
to:
Questions of Life, Answers of Wisdom (Paperback)
by M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen
|
my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
|
| |
|
|
Ercildoun
gave
to:
The Golden Words of a Sufi Sheikh (Paperback)
by M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen
|
my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
|
| |
|
|
Ercildoun
gave
to:
Open Secret: Versions of Rumi (Paperback)
by Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi, John Moyne, Coleman Barks
|
my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
|
| |
|
|
April 22
|
|
Ercildoun
gave
to:
The Palace of Illusions: A Novel (Hardcover)
by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
|
my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
|
| |
read in January, 2008
|
|
March 31
|
|
Ercildoun
gave
to:
The Namesake (Paperback)
by Jhumpa Lahiri
|
my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
|
| |
read in March, 2008
Ercildoun said:
"Michiko Kakutani begins her review for the New York Times, "Jhumpa Lahiri's quietly dazzling new novel, The Namesake, is that rare thing: an intimate, closely observed family portrait that effortlessly and discreetly unfolds to disclose a capaci...more
Michiko Kakutani begins her review for the New York Times, "Jhumpa Lahiri's quietly dazzling new novel, The Namesake, is that rare thing: an intimate, closely observed family portrait that effortlessly and discreetly unfolds to disclose a capacious social vision."
It's a novel about an immigrant family's imperfect assimilation into America. The story opens in 1968, as Nikhil's pregnant mother is mixing herself a Bengali American concoction of green chili peppers and Planters peanuts. It closes just three years ago, with grown Nikhil -- born in the United States, yet in his way as hyphenated an American as his parents -- at last reconciled to reading a book once given to him by his father, who used to embarrass him.
The book in question is a collection of stories by Nikolai Gogol, after whom Nikhil was christened when his dying Indian great-grandmother's name for him got lost in the mail. An artful image, that: Nikhil's true identity, hung up somewhere between India and the United States.
Nikhil becomes doubly a namesake. At first his father named him "Gogol" as a placeholder, in lieu of the name from the old country that never arrived, and only later "Nikhil," when tradition dictated that a more formal handle was required. The young man comes to hate both names: Nikhil because he's grown used to Gogol, and eventually Gogol, too, because it sounds even more foreign and hard to explain than Nikhil did.
In zeroing in on her hero's name to epitomize his identity crisis, Lahiri is, as usual, right on the money. Names have always been contested territory in immigrant families. Any Ntshona who ever became a Washington, any Fernando who ever went by "Freddy," any Lefkowitzes or Shmulovitzes who became Lakes and Smalls, can take a seat at the Ganguli table and feel right at home.
As Nikhil/Gogol grows up, attends Yale, becomes an architect and gets married, he gradually outgrows his family, or at least thinks he does. Only as he ponders starting a family of his own does Nikhil/Gogol discover that birthrights, unlike short pants, can be handed down but never fully outgrown.
A certain sameness begins to creep in midway through the book -- explicable,
if not completely excusable, as its picaresque hero's compulsion to trace the same neurotic patterns over and over. Several times we watch the oddly friendless Nikhil/Gogol meet the perfect woman, then see it all go comically, excruciatingly wrong.
Only near the end do we see that we've been expertly set up, that what passed for deft if slightly repetitive misadventures may really be the painful,
Portnoyish loneliness of the immigrant's son. As at the end of "The Graduate, " Lahiri gives us a romantic resolution and then leaves the camera running, overshooting her fairy-tale happy ending and granting us something wiser, darker, fuller.
Indirectly, Lahiri may be suggesting that assimilation's hyphen is not so easily straddled. Unlike word choices -- oranges or clementines? -- choices between the old country and the new world don't always stay made.
Reviewed by David Kipen, Chronicle Book Critic...less
"
|
|
Ercildoun
gave
to:
The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur (Hardcover)
by Daoud Hari
|
my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
|
| |
read in March, 2008
Ercildoun said:
"This is what it's about (from Book Haven)
In 2003, fighting broke out in Darfur as a result of the government's systematic campaign to move non-Arab Sudanese in Darfur off of the oil-rich land. Sudanese government forces and armed militia (known a...more
This is what it's about (from Book Haven)
In 2003, fighting broke out in Darfur as a result of the government's systematic campaign to move non-Arab Sudanese in Darfur off of the oil-rich land. Sudanese government forces and armed militia (known as "Janjaweed") began attacking civilians who are members of the same ethnic groups as the rebels. Countless villages have been destroyed. The rape of women and young girls is used as a tool of war. Hundreds of thousands have died, and over two million people have fled to refugee or IDP (internally-displaced) camps.
Daoud Hari, a Zaghawa tribesmen from Darfur, had recently returned to his village after living abroad when his village was attacked by the Janjaweed. He lost his beloved brother, Ahmed, in the attack, but helped his family and many of his relatives and fellow villager cross the desert to reach the relative safety of a border refugee camp.
Daoud Hari is not a person to stand around and do nothing. Despite the danger, he felt compelled to put his English skills to use as a translator for genocide investigators and reporters, in an attempt to get the word out about the genocide, to bring the ethnic cleansing of his people into your living room, so their voices could be heard. His memoir largely follows his work from 2003 until 2006, when he received protection as a refugee in the United States. It is a remarkable story of one man's determination to help his people, risking his life over and over again to fight the injustice that he has witnessed.
Daoud's story is the story of his people. It is also the story of millions of refugees living in border refugee camps around the world. They encounter many of the same problems that Hari witnesses: inadequate shelter, women and girls raped when they have to leave the camp to gather firewood for fuel, and people unable to earn any income when their host country forbids them from working. It is a story that must be read, and that needs to be heard.
The Darfur genocide is still taking place today. It may come and go in the news, on the whim of large media outlets, but it has not gone away. Ineffective peace agreements often make the situation worse. As Hari points out, as long as the Sudanese government attacks villages or provokes others to do so, there will be more people that join the rebel groups and fight back. In recent months, as predicted, is threatening to create a broader regional instability. In the beginning of this month, fighting broke out on the border regions of Chad and Sudan, threatening refugee camps, as well as the city N'Djamena....less
"
|
|
February 17
|
|
Ercildoun
gave
to:
In the Company of Cheerful Ladies (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, Book 6)
by Alexander McCall Smith
|
my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
|
| |
has a copy to sell/swap
|
