84 Charing Cross Road

This is another book written in letters (this is the second of three I've read in less than a month) and it was wonderful. Helene Hanff is a New York screen play writer who contacts a London-based bookseller to find her some rare books. From 1949-1969 Helene and the employees of Marks & Co Booksellers correspond about books and eventually their lives. Helene sends food and other items currently being rationed and they in turn offer to host her on a trip to England.

It is quite a touching story really. That people so far apart could have so much in common and care about each other deeply. It is also an testament to the bygone art of letter writing. It is a very very fast read but well worth it.

Three Cups of Tea

I have been hearing so much hype about this book that I decided to read it for myself and see what it was all about. I had the general gist of the story before I picked it up. A man almost dies trying to climb K-2 and when a Pakistani man saves him he promises that he will return and build a school for the girls of the village. Well, that man was a 6' 4" mountaineer from Montana named Greg Mortenson who I have to say is a pretty amazing person. Three Cups of Tea was yet another foray into non-fiction that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Greg's story is inspiring and terrifying. It gave me chills and made me angry. He received solid support and bitter opposition. Certainly he had his flaws, but his desire to help children is just so...pure is the only word I can use for it. The subtitle of the book is One Man's Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations...One School at at Time, but the terrorism part only became an issue after 9/11, Greg's quest to build schools in Pakistan began in 1993. It was when he saw what happens when the only choice for education was a maddrass (a school that teachs Islamic extremism and turns out terrorists) that he pointed out that providing children with non-extremist semi-secular education will create a population of young adults with futures and opporunities worth living for.

Greg did not work only in Pakistan, he worked in Afghanistan as well. This part of the story was especially interesting to me because while my husband was serving there after 9/11, he and his fellow soldiers helped furnish a girl's school in Jabar Serat. In fact, with the help of members of my church, we sent 25 enormous boxes of school supplies and chalkboards for those girls. My husband sent me home a video and some pictures of these girls he said they always wanted to see themselves in the LCDs of the digital cameras the soldiers had. These are some of those kids.

Perhaps I got a little off topic, but the idea that education of girls is the way to save the world is just fantastic. Honestly. Believe the hype, give this book a try.

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China

In this heart-wrenching memoir written by Jung Chang, the true horrors of China under the Kuomintang and then under the Communists and Mao are detailed through the story of her life as well as the lives of her mother and grandmother. Though I have read about China in other stories, this particular account was just painful to read...mesmerizing and fascinating but the atrocities committed by the leaders and citizens of China are so far beyond my scope of understanding it was difficult for me to absorb it all. I feel inadquate to try to describe both what I read and my feelings about it.

The story begins with Jung Chang's grandmother who was a concubine to a chief of police in Peking and she gives birth to Chang's mother. After her first husband dies, she marries a doctor and they live through attacks from Japan and the Communists and the Kuomintang form an alliance to defeat them. Chang's mother joins the Communist underground and a civil war erupts between the former allies. Chang is born a few years after the Communists take over and over the course of twenty-six years she endures a stint in the Red Guard, the defamation and detention and torture of her parents, "reeducation" in the country and horrible illness. It is a life I cannot imagine.

The women in Wild Swans were trapped - truly trapped. Death was the only escape from the hardship, the fear, the pain. Certainly they had happy moments, but they were far outweighed by the horrible ones. The memoir contained vast amounts of historical information about China but it was so well written and integrated into the story that I didn't feel like I was reading a history book. A truly eye-opening book.

The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam

Ann Marie Flemming, the great-granddaughter of the magician/acrobat Long Tack Sam tells Sam's story in this "illustrated memoir." The book was first a film which was made into a graphic novel after its showing at Sundance. The story was definitely interesting. Sam was Chinese but lived much of his life in Europe, marrying a woman from Austria. During his life which spanned from 1882-1961, he experienced fame from his prowess at magic and acrobatics but also racism because of his Asian heritage. Fleming's memoir is full of old photographs, newspaper clippings, stick figures, comics, and a world timeline which places the events of Sam's life in a global context.

This book did not really hold my attention. Towards the end I was sort of skimming over the pictures. It started off interesting, the story got convoluted a bit. Also, my library copy of this book started falling apart, like actual pages coming out (and the book looks really new) and that really distracted me. I did like that much of the book was about Fleming finding her relatives from all over the world and the appreciation she gained from learning about her ancestors.

Garlic and Sapphires (Well-Seasoned Reader #1 of 3)

Ruth Reichl was, for a time, the most influential food critic in the United States. She worked for the New York Times, visiting restaurants and starring them as she saw fit. However, part of being a food critic is being anonymous - the theory being that restaurants provide better food and service for food critics than for the average diner. Ruth, far from being unrecognizable, decides to visit restaurants in disguise at least once for each review. As she takes on different personas, she explores different parts of her own personality. A very interesting look at a person's life and career. Throughout the book, Ruth intersperses recipes and copies of the reviews she wrote.

I don't think there is a single item of food Ruth wrote about that I would be interested in eating. I am quite a coward when it comes to food. Her descriptions of tastes and textures were fabulous. It was a lovely little bit of irony reading about her six course meal costing hundreds of dollars and featuring things I have never even heard of while eating Mac and Cheese at the kitchen table with my kids. I read one of Reichl's previous books, Comfort Me With Apples which was more about her personal life than her career but it was quite good. A fun first book for my Well-Seasoned Reader Challenge.

Banker to the Poor

I never read non-fiction...ever. I can't remember the last thing I read besides the newspaper and my scriptures that wasn't primarily fictional. I found out about Muhammad Yunus' book Banker to the Poor a while back from my good friend and it sounded okay and when Tom and I were going to spend 13 hours driving in the car I hoped this would work out for both of us...he is a self help/technology/survival story guy and I mostly read ya fiction. Not the best reading match but we love each other anyway.

Iwas absolutely fascinated by this book. It is the autobiographical story of a Bangladeshi economist who is working, in the most literal sense, to bring the poor out of poverty. Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his work in beginning the Grameen Bank which gives microloans (tiny little loans to individuals) to help them begin or expand businesses. Several times I would exclaim out loud which would usually wake Tom up (ha!) because Iwas truly inspired by the idea and the execution of microloans.

One of the things that attracted me most to this whole idea is the focus on women. Grameen's goal from the outset was to have more than 50% of its borrowers be women. Keep in mind, most of the Bangladeshis he was loaning to were Muslim - many of whom had never handled money. Many of whom were in truly abject poverty and virtual slavery. But by loaning these women small amounts of capital (and they loan repayment rate is something insane like 98%) they are able to feed themselves and their families and feel self-respect. Wow. Seriously, I would recommend this book to anyone. It makes me feel like there is truly hope for the world.

http://www.grameen-info.org/