The Colonel

The Colonel is the latest book by the Iranian author, Mahmoud Dowlatabadi. This book is banned in Iran and was first published outside of Iran. Even though some of his books in Farsi are widely popular in Iran this was the first book I read by this author. The story is about a former colonel from the Shah era and his wife and five children after the 1979 revolution in Iran. The story is told through flash backs in time and by references to some of Iranian historic events and figures. This combined by his style of writing makes the story a bit harder to follow. The personal and family conflicts caused by the revolution and clash of tradition and modernity drives the family in different paths.

One of the reasons that I enjoyed this novel was that since I lived in Iran during the revolution I could imagine myself being any of the characters in the book.

Argo

Few years ago I read the book Our Man In Tehran by Robert Wright. The book is about american hostages in Iran and Canadian involvement in that crisis from the point of view of the Canadian ambassador in Iran during those days, Ken Taylor. I also wanted to read the book Argo when it was released but never found the time to do so until the movie started to make lots of noise and eventually winning the Oscar. I wanted to read the book before seeing the movie.

I got the audio-book of the Argo from the library. The narration is done very well and the book is well written which made me to want to keep listening. I find this book more entertaining to read than Our Man In Tehran but the latter gives more realistic information about the whole situation. I got the feeling that the author either knowingly or just by mistake describing scenes in a way to make them more dramatic. One example of this is the reference to the revolutionary guards walking at night on the streets and blowing their whistles. I was living in Tehran during that time and I know that because of the increase in theft during and after the revolution some neighbors hired security guards to watch out for the cars and the houses in their neighborhoods. These guards were not part of the revolutionary guards but in Argo they are referred to as being part of them.

As I was reading both books I was asking myself that there must have been few people inside Iranian government who were aware of the situation and this report on the CBC kind of answered this question.

Here Comes Trouble

Here Comes Trouble: Stories from My Life

I listened to the audio-book of this title which I got from our library. Part of the reason I choose this book was that I couldn't find the audio-books in my to-read list in the library. This has happened to me before, looking for a specific book and not finding it and coming across a title that was intriguing enough to borrow it, and I 'd been pleasantly surprised with these books. I usually check the online reviews, some negative and some positive, for the books that I want to read. I did the same for this title. Some of the negative reviews were more based on the author, Michael Moore, and his previous works rather than this book. For most part the reviews were good and I decided to go ahead and listen to it.

This book is a collection of stories about the author from different stages of his life and is narrated by himself. I enjoyed both the narration and the stories.

Following is the list of the stories in this book:

The Execution of Michael Moore

Crawling Backward

Search Party

The Canoe

Piet

Tet

Christmas

A Holy Thursday

The Exorcism

Boys State

Zoe

Getaway Car

Two Dates

Twenty Names

Milhous, in Three Acts

Crisis Intervention

A Public Education

Raid

Bitburg

A Blessing

Abu 2 U 2

Hot Tanned Nazi

Parnassus

Gratitude

In the "A Blessing" he tells the story of George Zabelka, the Roman Catholic priest who blessed the Enola Gay before its mission to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The dialog between Michael Moore and the priest is very interesting, specially now with the trial of Bradley Manning underway. The story revolves around the sense of guilt the priest has about his moral support for the bombing.

George: "... it is the responsibility of every human to know their actions and their consequences and to ask questions and to question things when they are wrong."
Michael: "but George this was war no one is allowed to ask any questions."
George: "and it is exactly that kind of attitude that continues to get us into more wars, no one asking any questions specially in the military."

Faith At War

After September 11 Yaroslav Trofimov was assigned by The Wall Street Journals to travel in Islamic countries and write about his experience about the people and their culture living in these countries. Faith At War is the collection of his interviews and personal views during these travels.

This was the second book I read by this author. I enjoyed reading his other book, The Siege of Mecca, which was the 2009 gold medal winner from The Washington Institute and I learned a lot about the Saudi Arabia and what happened in the Grand Mosque in Mecca on 1979. I had a high expectation reading the Faith At War and I wasn't disappointed. The first book is more focused and discusses in more depth the history of Saudi Arabia and the siege of the Grand Mosque but the second book covers more of a basic overall culture of people and their attitude toward the west.

His travels included the Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Yemen, Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Mali, and Bosnia. I recommend this book for people who are interested in having a basic knowledge about these countries and their people and their culture keeping in mind that his interviews are limited and only shows a cross section of people of each country. I agree with his point that the failure of west to understand and accept the culture of people of these countries leads to fundamentalist groups to gain power.

I read this book as part of the 2013 Middle East Reading Challenge.

5 Broken Cameras - Village of Bilin

Reading the book "The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine" (I wrote about it here), I learned about the way people in the village of Bilin in the West Bank are opposing the settlement building on their lands. They have chosen to protest peacefully and pursue legal ways to oppose this and save their lands and village. "5 Broken Cameras" is a movie about this movement which is nominated for best Documentary Feature in the 2013 Academy Awards.

Bissan, Mayar, Aya, Noor, Smadar, Abir ...

Few years ago I read a book about a Palestinian doctor losing three of his daughters and his niece during Israel's attack to Gaza on January 16, 2009. They were at their home when an Israeli tank shell hit their house and killed them. The book title was "I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor's Journey". This is an incredible story of forgiveness and hope for future. After losing his three daughters, Bissan, Mayar and Aya, and his niece, Noor, Dr. Abuelaish goes against revenge and hate. He believes forgiveness is the key element of bringing peace to that region and avoiding similar losses in future (for more see here).

After reading this book I was curious to see how other families in that region react to similar tragedies. I read  the novel "To the End of the Land" which is about a mother of a soldier serving in Israel's army and awaiting his son's return. David Grossman started writing this novel when his son was serving in the army and finishes the novel when his other son loses his life fighting in Lebanon. The mother in the novel leaves the city and goes on a hiking trip, hoping that not being at home will stop the arrival of the bad news.

Another book I read recently was "The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine". Miko Peled starts the book by talking about his family and his father, an Israeli general who fought in 1948 and 1967 wars. He then talks about the tragic loss of his niece, Smadar, to a suicide bombing in Jerusalem in 1997, when two young Palestinians blew themselves up. She was thirteen years old. This tragedy sets him on a path to understand why those two young Palestinians decided to kill themselves and others. He starts by participation in Israeli and Palestinian discussion groups in San Diego for few years before traveling to West Bank and Gaza. One of the people he meets on West Bank is called Bassam. Two years after they first meet, on January 16 of 2007, an Israeli soldier shots Bassam's 10 year old daughter, Abir, while she was walking home from school.

Unfortunately there are more stories like these than there should be. Bereaved Families for Peace is a group of Israeli and Palestinian families that have lost loved ones and are promoting peace and tolerance to stop this from happening to others.

Agatha Christie

Every now and then I like to read one of Poirot's adventures. Recently I read the Murder on the Orient Express. The story revolves around a group of people on the Orient Express travelling from Istanbul to London. While the train is forced to stop because of a winter storm, a murder is committed and Poirot is commissioned to solve the crime. There were couple of things in this story that I found interesting.

First it was the fact that the story starts in Aleppo. This city is one of the oldest cities in the world that has been inhibited continuously. At the time that I started reading the book Aleppo and Syria were on the news everyday. It is sad to see what is happening in Syria and I hope for the violence to stop soon and people of Syria live in peace again.

Second interesting thing for me about this book was that the story is happening in the Orient Express passenger train. This train is mentioned in Bram Stoker's Dracula and Ian Fleming's James Bond from Russia with Love.

Dune

I don't read science fiction too often. I probably should.

About a year ago I asked a friend of mine for a good science fiction book and he recommended Dune by Frank Herbert. This book was written in 1965 and Herbert later wrote four more sequels to it. I enjoyed reading this book a lot and I can see why lots of people consider this book the best science fiction book of all time. I am planning to read the next two books in the series. I've heard the rest are not as good and it is best to stop after reading the third one :)

My favorite quote from this book is:

"You cannot avoid the interplay of politics within an orthodox religion. This power struggle permeates the training, educating and disciplining of the orthodox community. Because of this pressure, the leaders of such a community inevitably must face that ultimate internal question: to succumb to complete opportunism as the price of maintaining their rule, or risk sacrificing themselves for the sake of the orthodox ethic.
—from “Muad’Dib: The Religious Issues” by the Princess Irulan"

Let me know if you have other favorites ...