The Brave Life and Death of My Husband, Danny Pearl
by Mariane Pearl
This book needs no "from the cover". Cast your mind back to 2002 and recall the kidnapped journalist whose death was broadcast over the internet. This is his story. Incredible
I had two flags from this very powerful book...
pg 59 War held no appeal for Danny or for me. What interested us was the challenge presented by peace. People often see peace as the simple absence of war, but it is instead the result of courageous actions taken to initiate a dialogue between civilizations. Both Danny and I saw our profession as a way to contribute to the dialogue, to allow voices on all sides to be heard, and to bear witness.
pg 272 ... the words of a poem by Diane Ackerman called "School Prayer" - words I have tried, and keep trying, to embody with my whole life:
"I swear I will not dishonour
my soul with hatred,
but offer myself humbly
as a guardian of nature,
as a healer of misery,
as a messenger of wonder,
as an architect of peace ."
Showing posts with label books - true stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books - true stories. Show all posts
24.11.07
5.9.07
Geisha, A Life
by Mineko Iwasaki with Rande Brown
From the cover, "No woman in the three-hundred-year history of the karyukai has ever come forward in public to tell her story - until now."
No flags, but it's an interesting real-life account of the world of geisha. If you've read Memoirs of a Geisha, you'll find some discrepancies (i.e. around the meaning of the mizuage ceremony) - very interesting!
From the cover, "No woman in the three-hundred-year history of the karyukai has ever come forward in public to tell her story - until now."
No flags, but it's an interesting real-life account of the world of geisha. If you've read Memoirs of a Geisha, you'll find some discrepancies (i.e. around the meaning of the mizuage ceremony) - very interesting!
The Deserter's Tale
The Story of an Ordinary Soldier Who Walked Away from the War In Iraq
by Joshua Key as told to Lawrence Hill
The title sums it up - an eye-opening read into the American Military and the war in Iraq.
I had only a few flags:
pg 173 As far as I knew, I had not killed any person in Iraq. I had not fired my M-249 since it had stopped working a month or two earlier. I had taken part in about two hundred house raids but had months earlier lost an belief in the cause. Most of my buddies felt the same way. The house raids were nothing but an excuse to insult, intimidate, and arrest Iraqis. They gave us a convenient target to vent our frustrations, never having any real enemies to kill in battle. For a time, the raids gave us an opportunity to beat people, steal their belongings, and destroy the things we didn't care to take. But I wasn't the only one who had let up on the beatings and the stealing as my conscience returned. For most of us, setting off C-4 explosives, ransacking houses, and zipcuffing teenagers and men provided a boost of adrenaline and excitement for a month of two at the most. As time went on, we found no weapons of mass destruction. We found no signs of terrorism. We found nothing but people whose lives would deteriorate, or end, simply for having met us face to face in their cars and their houses. Some of us had not even respected them in death.
(sidebar - at one point in the book he commented that while America had begun the war in Iraq against terrorism, it was really the Americans in Iraq who were the terrorists.)
pg 228 Although I would love to sit down with the president, I would like even more to have half an hour with every young American who is thinking of signing up for the poverty draft. As poor and desperate as my young family was when I drove to the armed forces recruiting centre in Oklahoma in March 2002, I never would have signed up if I'd known I would be blasting into Iraqis' houses, terrorizing women and children, and detaining every man we could find - and all that for $1,200 a month as a private first class. Somehow, somewhere, I would have found a job and a way to survive. I never would have gone to war for my country if I had known what my country was going to do at war in Iraq.
by Joshua Key as told to Lawrence Hill
The title sums it up - an eye-opening read into the American Military and the war in Iraq.
I had only a few flags:
pg 173 As far as I knew, I had not killed any person in Iraq. I had not fired my M-249 since it had stopped working a month or two earlier. I had taken part in about two hundred house raids but had months earlier lost an belief in the cause. Most of my buddies felt the same way. The house raids were nothing but an excuse to insult, intimidate, and arrest Iraqis. They gave us a convenient target to vent our frustrations, never having any real enemies to kill in battle. For a time, the raids gave us an opportunity to beat people, steal their belongings, and destroy the things we didn't care to take. But I wasn't the only one who had let up on the beatings and the stealing as my conscience returned. For most of us, setting off C-4 explosives, ransacking houses, and zipcuffing teenagers and men provided a boost of adrenaline and excitement for a month of two at the most. As time went on, we found no weapons of mass destruction. We found no signs of terrorism. We found nothing but people whose lives would deteriorate, or end, simply for having met us face to face in their cars and their houses. Some of us had not even respected them in death.
(sidebar - at one point in the book he commented that while America had begun the war in Iraq against terrorism, it was really the Americans in Iraq who were the terrorists.)
pg 228 Although I would love to sit down with the president, I would like even more to have half an hour with every young American who is thinking of signing up for the poverty draft. As poor and desperate as my young family was when I drove to the armed forces recruiting centre in Oklahoma in March 2002, I never would have signed up if I'd known I would be blasting into Iraqis' houses, terrorizing women and children, and detaining every man we could find - and all that for $1,200 a month as a private first class. Somehow, somewhere, I would have found a job and a way to survive. I never would have gone to war for my country if I had known what my country was going to do at war in Iraq.
25.8.07
A Year Without "Made In China"
One Family's True Life Adventure in the Global Economy
by Sara Bongiorni
The title describes it - a family embarks on a year long boycott of Chinese products. I picked up this book for two reasons 1) to ensure that out of the typical stream of books I enjoy, I also explore what else is out there for me to learn from and 2) there is a lot about China in the other book I have on the go, The World is Flat, so I thought this would be a neat real-life expedition in the realities of globalization.
However, throughout the whole book I struggled with it's premise. So too, did some of the subjects, and I don't feel it was ever cleared up:
pg 100 Like his father, Wes sees little virtue in a China boycott.
"Do we not like China?" he asks me one day.
I am alarmed by the question.
"Yes, we like China," I tell him.
He presses on.
"Are they not nice to people?"
"They are perfectly good people in China," I assure him. "No different than people anywhere else."
"Then how come we don't buy China things?" he asks.
We've been over this territory before but I stumble every time. Many days I can't quite remember myself why we are doing this, so to explain it in a way that makes sense to a four-year old is beyond my abilities. Still, I suppose it's my duty to try.
"We like China, but it's a very big place, with lots of factories, and we want to give other countries a chance to sell us things," I say.
pg 130 Today Sofie does something that no toddler in America, perhaps no toddler in the world, has ever done. She is trailing after me in the toy aisle at the market when she picks up a box, peers at the underside, mutters "China" as if reading, and then returns the box to its place on the shelf. I should have seen this coming - monkey see, monkey do, after all - but I'm blindsided by her performance. My first thought is: What have I done? My next one is: Can it be undone? What sort of mother teaches her toddler to fear Chinese toys? And if she's fearful of Chinese toys, what's next? Fear of Chinese people?
by Sara Bongiorni
The title describes it - a family embarks on a year long boycott of Chinese products. I picked up this book for two reasons 1) to ensure that out of the typical stream of books I enjoy, I also explore what else is out there for me to learn from and 2) there is a lot about China in the other book I have on the go, The World is Flat, so I thought this would be a neat real-life expedition in the realities of globalization.
However, throughout the whole book I struggled with it's premise. So too, did some of the subjects, and I don't feel it was ever cleared up:
pg 100 Like his father, Wes sees little virtue in a China boycott.
"Do we not like China?" he asks me one day.
I am alarmed by the question.
"Yes, we like China," I tell him.
He presses on.
"Are they not nice to people?"
"They are perfectly good people in China," I assure him. "No different than people anywhere else."
"Then how come we don't buy China things?" he asks.
We've been over this territory before but I stumble every time. Many days I can't quite remember myself why we are doing this, so to explain it in a way that makes sense to a four-year old is beyond my abilities. Still, I suppose it's my duty to try.
"We like China, but it's a very big place, with lots of factories, and we want to give other countries a chance to sell us things," I say.
pg 130 Today Sofie does something that no toddler in America, perhaps no toddler in the world, has ever done. She is trailing after me in the toy aisle at the market when she picks up a box, peers at the underside, mutters "China" as if reading, and then returns the box to its place on the shelf. I should have seen this coming - monkey see, monkey do, after all - but I'm blindsided by her performance. My first thought is: What have I done? My next one is: Can it be undone? What sort of mother teaches her toddler to fear Chinese toys? And if she's fearful of Chinese toys, what's next? Fear of Chinese people?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
