I saw this on a friend's Goodreads feed and started to revise down my opinion of her. I thought our book tastes were very much in sync but this raisedI saw this on a friend's Goodreads feed and started to revise down my opinion of her. I thought our book tastes were very much in sync but this raised questions. Then she texted me that I should read it and I responded that it seemed like "cheesy Americana". Notwithstanding my reservations I downloaded the audio book, listened to a little, listened to a little more, and was hooked. By the end I was also moved. Now I need to decide whether I should unrevised my opinion of my friend or revised down my opinion of myself.
Before going further, let me say that IF you want to read this I strongly recommend the audiobook. It is read by Doris Kearns Goodwin who has a nice voice for the emotions and feelings she conveys. Extended passages in Dick Goodwin's voice, like his diary and some of his letters, are read by Bryan Cranston. And finally, the quotes from speeches by John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Robert Kennedy are all taken from archival recordings--which is particularly important in a book about the man that penned many of these enduring words.
The book largely focuses on Dick Goodwin, how he came of age politically, joined the army, the Kennedy staff, campaign and administration, then the Johnson administration and finally the McCarthy and Robert Kennedy campaigns in 1968. His role was speechwriter but he was also involved in policy including Latin American issues under Kennedy (when they were central) then civil rights and the Great Society--a term he coined--under Johnson. He had an amazing ability to be wherever the action was--and unfortunately where the tragedy was as well.
Doris Kearns Goodwin writes the book largely based on going through 100+ boxes Dick had saved of diaries, letters, memos, speech drafts, memorabilia, and more--including a broken police baton from the 1968 Democratic convention. She also does other research and interviews to fill out the picture. Her story is also presented in parallel but with considerably less detail, including joining the Johnson Labor Department and then, in 1968, the White House where she gets close to Lyndon Baines Johnson. Although she was in many geographic locations with Dick they did not actually meet until the early 1970s--after the events presented in detail in the book.
Dick Goodwin is a complicated character. The book presents a lot of the criticisms of his opportunism, self promotion, and more. While each individual item is refuted by arguments it makes the collective weight of them started to feel like there must have been something to it. How many times can it not be your fault that something you've done leaks to the press and results in a hagiographic story? It is to Kearns Goodwin's credit that she presents these complexities even if she disagrees.
I did not learn a whole lot new about the very familiar ground of event like how Johnson moved rapidly after Kennedy's death to push a legislative agenda inspired by him. But it filled in some new details and the human perspective and meticulous reconstruction of a world that is both bygone but also very familiar was fascinating.
I enjoyed Doris Kearns Goodwin's company on this journey but not enough that I would even consider reading her book Leadership: In Turbulent Times--unless perhaps my friend strongly recommends it....more
Possibly the most moving graphic novels I've ever read, this is a graphic memoir told by a woman who arrived in the Unites States as a refugee from ViPossibly the most moving graphic novels I've ever read, this is a graphic memoir told by a woman who arrived in the Unites States as a refugee from Vietnam in 1978. It is bookended by the birth of her first child but most of it is flashbacks to the experiences of her family in Vietnam and the ways in which their lives intersected with World War II, the French, the Viet Minh, and the Vietnam war. Throughout the focus is on their humanity, their struggles, their personalities, and especially about relationships of parents to children. It is illustrated beautifully, told beautifully, among the best graphic novels I've read....more
A beautifully drawn rendition of the autobiographies of six Yiddish teenagers all written just before the outbreak of World War II. The preface explaiA beautifully drawn rendition of the autobiographies of six Yiddish teenagers all written just before the outbreak of World War II. The preface explains that a Jewish organization launched a contest for autobiographies that were supposed to highlight the ordinary, everyday lives of people. The winner was supposed to be announced on September 1, 1939. Instead the hundreds of biographies were hidden first from the Nazis and then from the Soviets, forgotten, and recently rediscovered. Cartoonist Ken Krimstein picked six of them and told their stories with illustrations evocative of the world they lived in. Note that almost all of the autobiographies were anonymous so little is known of the fate of the writers (beyond one who signed her name), but one can only guess.
I appreciated, however, that this was not about how these people died but how they lived. In one case a multi-generational tale of a family with eight daughters, in another someone writing letters to be admitted to the United States, in still another a folk singer. Much of what they recount is ordinary teenage stuff along with some of the clash of modernity vs. tradition. In this way it both recreates a lost world and also shows how similar that world is to our own.
I should also note that (like many graphic novels) this is a very fast read. You get a lot for not a whole lot of time. Strongly recommend reading it....more
I got this graphic novel at the Stasi Museum in Berlin and it was a pleasant surprise. A memoir (I think) of the last days before the Berlin Wall cameI got this graphic novel at the Stasi Museum in Berlin and it was a pleasant surprise. A memoir (I think) of the last days before the Berlin Wall came down from the perspective of a 13 (?) year old boy. The vast bulk of the book has the politics deep in the background--it is mostly him going to school, dealing with bullies, organizing a ping pong tournament, and other "normal" things about life in the East Berlin in the time before the wall came down. It is really well drawn, has a childlike feeling and energy to it, and has engaging characters. Then just as he is being punished by his parents they hear the wall came down and everything changed, but he is too wrapped up in his own life to want to go with it.
Full disclosure: I started this book because a wife of a friend gave it to me.
Further disclosure: I continued and finished the book because it was excFull disclosure: I started this book because a wife of a friend gave it to me.
Further disclosure: I continued and finished the book because it was exciting and interesting and insightful from beginning to end. (I listened to most of it on Audible.)
Natasha Lance Rogoff was recruited to executive produce Sesame Street (or Ulitsa Sezam as it was called there) in Russia in the early 1990s, a time that I remember well (and lived in Russia for a few months) for the hope and promise of democracy, capitalism and a broader liberal attitude.
The project sounds straightforward but it was anything but. Just the amount of effort and talent that goes into Sesame Street regular is impressive: the months designing and making the puppets and the set, the auditions that started with over one hundred people that narrowed down to four puppeteers, and need to find actors and write songs, and more. It's always interesting to read about the tremendous amount of expertise that goes into something in ways that you would never guess or observe from the end product.
But layer on top of all of this the unique challenges of operating in Russia. Natasha tries to secure funding from various oligarchs but car bombings, assassinations, and moral/political qualms keep getting in the way. Eventually she finds a funder but her funder keeps halting payment and no television station wants to take the show given the political uncertainty. At one point Russian soldiers invade the studio, kick everyone out, and actually steal Elmo. Other notable dramas include her bringing thousands of dollars into Russia stuffed in her bra and various other dramas.
Then there are the cultural differences: the children auditioning all sing sad songs about death in war, the Russian team is initially less interested in Sesame Street's multicultural tolerant messages, and other tensions over melding an American production and concept into something that is truly Russian.
But somehow it all comes together. And interspersed with it is a touching story Natasha and economist Ken Rogoff falling in love, getting married and having a baby--which basically arrives just as the show does.
The story never flags, you can feel the setbacks and excitement as it all comes together. But of course this is thirty years ago, as a series of postscripts make clear the show ended, it did not transform Russia, and most of the production team is now opposed to the Russian war--or left the country.
Still it leaves you with just a little hope--even if it is not the happy ending that we all wish had happened....more
“I was born at the end of the baby boom in the primordial darkness just before the dawn of the exercise epoch… Apart from having to get up and switch “I was born at the end of the baby boom in the primordial darkness just before the dawn of the exercise epoch… Apart from having to get up and switch channels manually, we did not exercise.” So begins a memoir of the brilliant graphic artist Alison Bechdel’s relationship to exercise over the course of her life. The book starts in the present and then goes back to take us through the decades of Bechdel’s exercise life:
The 1960s: Jack Lalanne on TV appealing to housewives, children’s comic books pushing ludicrous fads including one that gave the book its title
The 1970s: Bechdel tries the odd and seemingly ludicrous activity of running for three miles in her childhood neighborhood, at first thinking it is like hiking she brings along snacks.
The 1980s: Living in Greenwich Village as a young adult, women’s feminist karate classes but then trying it on a harasser in the subway only to get punched back hard—which put it all in perspective.
The 1990s to the present (and yes, it goes right up the pandemic and the 2020 election): A combination of going through various fads like classes, interval training, but also watching everything get harder, her fitness peak and start to decline, and dealing with the process of aging (Bechdel was born in 1960 so was 60 as of the publication of the book).
All of this is interspersed with the stories of Margaret Fuller, Jack Kerouac and some others like Coleridge, Wordsworth and Adrienne Rich that I personally found more distracting from the compelling narrative of Bechdel’s life than illuminating. Plus Kerouac in particular, especially the The Dharma BumsThe Dharma Bums, was used as a broader context for the Buddhist mysticism of exercise that infused the book but did not particularly interest me.
Overall, the drawing is excellent, the book is consistently funny and self reflective, often candid and self deprecatory, it was exciting to see the process of writing the extraordinary Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic show up in the narrative, and I enjoyed the nostalgia trip through a bunch of periods and settings that I lived through, albeit ten years younger with a rather different life experience....more
Another amazing graphic novel from John Lewis and the creative team that produced March: Book One. I can't stress enough how well the medium works in Another amazing graphic novel from John Lewis and the creative team that produced March: Book One. I can't stress enough how well the medium works in telling this story, the vivid black-and-white pictures that take us from the aftermath of the Voting Rights Act to John Lewis resigning from SNCC and deciding he himself is going to run. It depicts the violence and brutality that continued for years after Black people had legally gotten protection for their voting rights, the debates over the tactics to respond to it, and the rise of Stokley Carmichael and the Black Power movement as a continuation of and alternative to the traditional nonviolent civil rights movement. The story is told sympathetically and well (maybe not quite as well as March with its flashbacks from Obama's first inauguration).
The afterword includes several pages of the artist (Nate Powell) describing his methods which gave me an even deeper appreciation of the book. He painstakingly went through old photographs and other sources as well as interviewed people in an attempt to get everything as right as possible, not a photo but something like it. Even with large groups he tried to have real people's faces in order to, as he explained, honor the many unnamed people that played a role in these events. He also showed places where he originally drew, for example, an office in the wrong way and then was corrected by a participant. The level of detail is extraordinary because so many comics are just slapdash inking and this one could have sold decently without anything resembling this degree of effort and artistry....more
Tillie Walden is one of the most amazing people working in comics today. I first read On a Sunbeam, which is still my favorite, but she is so young thTillie Walden is one of the most amazing people working in comics today. I first read On a Sunbeam, which is still my favorite, but she is so young that she has decades of work ahead of her and everything we're reading now will eventually look like her early work.
Spinning is mostly a memoir of the more than a decade she spent in girls competitive figure skating: the pressures, stress, objectification, camaraderie and cattiness, and more. She never seems to really like it, to be very competitive, or to care--mostly valuing the time alone in hotel rooms and missing school more than the competitions themselves. But she still can't get up the nerve to tell her parents she wants to quit until her last year in high school and their reaction is not to care.
Spinning also deals with middle school friendships, mentorships, her learning she was gay and her first relationship, and little bits about being a Jewish New Jersey girl who moves to Texas, but most of that is subordinate to the figuring skating narrative and enters mostly insofar as it shapes that narrative.
The artwork is beautiful, especially when she adds a little bit of color and those pages standout from the rest of the black and white. The story is insightful and empathetic although at times it lacks some of the depth and perspective I would have liked, I especially wished it told us more about her relationship to her parents and their motivations in all of this.
Overall, however, you can see why this is made Tillie Walden one of the youngest Eisner winners ever, and I suspect not the last time she'll win that award....more
Every time I saw this in the bookstore I was skeptical because I was afraid that George Takei was trading on his celebrity. But I finally gave in becaEvery time I saw this in the bookstore I was skeptical because I was afraid that George Takei was trading on his celebrity. But I finally gave in because I had read all the other graphic novels on my rising eighth grade daughter's school's summer reading list (a list that including the outstanding On a Sunbeam and March: Book One). As a bit of a completist I decided I should read this one too, plus graphic novels don't take very long. And it was excellent!
The incarceration of Japanese Americans in World War II (the term Takei prefers instead of the more usual "internment") is well known as a shameful episode in our history. But I had never read anything in detail about it and certainly not tried to understand the experience for people that lived through it. Takei was four when the U.S. military gave his family 10 minutes to leave their Los Angeles home and then spent the next four years being moved from camp to camp, leaving the world of barbed wire when he turned eight.
The book gives a child's eye view of these events, at times scary but more often just feeling normal because it was all he knew. It also portrays the different choices made by different prisoners: some enlisted in the army, some signed loyalty oaths, others conscientiously refused (including Takei's father), and ultimately many of them were pressured into giving up their U.S. citizenship entirely (including Takei's mother).
In addition to being a vivid portrait of a historical experience Takei addresses how that historical experience does and does not resonate down with history. He shows how Ronald Reagan signed a law honoring the former prisoners and paying them restitution speaking in soaring terms of the shame of what America had done and honoring the Japanese-Americans for their contributions, Bill Clinton did further honors for combat veterans saying the United States got more than it deserved, and the American legal system often provided refuge and support, especially after the war. But Takei is not just sugar coating America's ability to improve, he ends on the Muslim ban and current immigration policies--seeing an echo of the incarceration of Japanese Americans and the attitudes that went into it in these policies today.
Definitely worth the short time it takes to read this book that illuminates with depth and sensitivity an important episode in American history that is not overlooked (people know it) but still underappreciated....more
This was two books in one: a pretty good memoir about aspects of life as an undocumented child of undocumented parents and set of portraits of undocumThis was two books in one: a pretty good memoir about aspects of life as an undocumented child of undocumented parents and set of portraits of undocumented Americans that are worth reading but less three dimensional than the author's stated aspirations.
Karla Cornejo Villavicencio starts out angry at the thought anyone would even ask her to write a memoir, "A memoir? I was twenty-one. I wasn't fucking Barbara Streisand. I had been writing professionally since I was fifteen, but only about music--I wanted to be the guy in High Fidelity--and I didn't want my first book to be a rueful tale about being a sickly Victorian orphan with tuberculosis who didn't have a Social Security number, which is what the agents all wanted." She then says she is going to set out to portray a set of undocumented Americans without burdening them with representation, instead portraying them as they are, including "warm, funny, dry, evasive, philosophical, weird, annoying, etc." I absolutely loved this introduction, it was what got me to read the book, and set a standard that also left me somewhat disappointed.
A lot of the book is indeed a memoir and a very good one. Cornejo Villavicencio's father comes across as every adjective above and more as he goes from a job as a taxi driver to delivery (where is he called a "delivery boy" even though he is a man) to restaurants. Her mother initially didn't work but has a bit of a feminist reawakening when she starts to work. And Cornejo Villavicencio herself never gets tuberculosis but struggles with migraines while her father has a prostate cancer scare and all of this is impacted by being undocumented in America. Finally, her younger brother was born in the United States making him a citizen and eligible to sponsor the others when he turns 21, although he is less of a character in the book.
The memoir content is interspersed around the journalism as Cornejo Villavicencio spends countless hours with different undocumented Americans, like day laborers in New York City and people getting asylum in Cleveland. In many ways the variety of places and people appear intended to be representational of undocumented immigrants--despite her protest otherwise in the introduction. And that really does lead to the problem she was trying to avoid, flattening them, making them types, representatives and victims of all of America's injustices. In some cases, they may be very realistic types, but in some ways not (only a couple dozen people are living in asylum in churches and she tells us about a thousand undocumented day laborers in New York, so those stories are interested but actually don't seem representative).
Finally, there is virtually nothing positive in the portraits and interactions in America. Maybe that is fair and true but one has the suspicion that amidst the genuine outrages in places like Flint (which she depicts), there genuinely are a lot of old-fashioned opportunities in America--of which someone like the author, a woman that graduated from Harvard and is now getting a Ph.D. from Yale--would actually be a good example of.
P.S. I listened to Cornejo Villavicencio's excellent narration of the audio book....more
I had never read this before but no one was waiting for me to say that it is, indeed, excellent. In many ways the story is familiar (not least becauseI had never read this before but no one was waiting for me to say that it is, indeed, excellent. In many ways the story is familiar (not least because I read the magisterial biography Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom) and it also follows many of the familiar contours of slave narratives and escapes. But it is so well told, so insightful and sympathetic, when it is unsympathetic it is even more powerful, and with William Lloyd Garrison's excellent introduction and the conclusion which in some respects is still in the middle of the story, that heightens its power.
I listened to the audio version narrated by Raymond Hearn and would highly recommend that recording....more
A beautiful, moving memoir about a woman coming to terms with her memory of her mother--her mother's murder, the violent abusive relationship with herA beautiful, moving memoir about a woman coming to terms with her memory of her mother--her mother's murder, the violent abusive relationship with her step father and growing up in Mississippi with a Black mother and white father. It is so painful to watch her mother trapped in a violently abusive relationship, trying to escape and protect her children, and fearing for her life--with the system ultimately being unwilling to protect her. Natasha Trethewey had blocked out this entire period of her life only returning to it decades later and writes poetically (no surprise) interspersed with some of the original court records, including a first person account by her mother (without the unhappy ending) and transcripts of phone calls between her mother and step father.
I listened to the excellent Audible recording read by Trethewey....more
Although uneven (what else would one expect from a story collection and unfinished novel by a 15 year old in hiding), the best of these pieces are excAlthough uneven (what else would one expect from a story collection and unfinished novel by a 15 year old in hiding), the best of these pieces are excellent and provide an interesting complement to Anne Frank's Diary.
This collection has four types of pieces: (1) additional sketches about life in hiding that were included in the The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition published in 1995 but not in the The Diary of a Young Girl that was the original version edited by her father Otto Frank and is about 25 percent shorter; (2) realistic short stories generally set in Holland; (3) fables and fairy tales, many of which she referred to the writing of in her diary; and (4) fragments from an unfinished novel "Cady's Life." I will address each of these in turn.
The additional sketches are almost all excellent and should ideally be read in the context of the diary itself, they are each wonderfully written and observed, succinctly written, and both witty and insightful observations on every day life in hiding, including "The Dentist" about Dussel, "Sausage Day" about the making of sausages, and "Sundays" which describes each of the inhabitants lives on that day.
If you read the "Definitive" edition of the Diary already then the most exciting new writing in this collection is the realistic short stories (although some are less than fully realistic, including my favorite "Paula's Dream" about a German girl who hides in an Air Force plane during World War I, ends up flying on a bombing mission to Russia, gets shot down, is raised by Russians, and after the war has to make her way back to Germany). Like the sketches, they are well observed but they are also more the product of imagination than experience and often, like a short story, center around a particular incident and psychological shift, mostly in the manner of a Chekhov story. In addition to "Paula's Dream" I would also recommend "Roomers or Renters," "Happiness," and "Fear."
Then there are the fairy tales and fables. I wish these had been included in the Diary itself on the dates they were written because I think interspersing them with her day-to-day recollections would have more accurately captured her writing and given you the texts of the stories along with her references to writing them. In this context, however, they are mildly interesting but can also be a bit tedious and a little overly saccharine.
Finally there is "Cady's Life," an unfinished novel about a girl who has a terrible accident and ends up in a sanatorium forming a relationship with a nurse and having intense discussions about subjects like the existence of God while the beginnings of World War II are rumbling in the background. The unfinished novel is about 50 pages with a sustained opening stretch and then several fragments of unclear order. What is there was actually interesting and engaging reading and read like an actual novel, but it is all so unfinished that it leaves one both marveling at her writing but also sad that it will never been finished or fully realized....more
I always thought I had an obligation to read this, a chore to honor the dead by reading what I expected to be a stuffy, prissy, cardboard saint sort oI always thought I had an obligation to read this, a chore to honor the dead by reading what I expected to be a stuffy, prissy, cardboard saint sort of a book. Boy was I dead wrong. What an amazing writer and observer. Balanced between observation, humor, biting wit, recording events, the backdrop of the war, evolving feelings, and more. Imagining life in a Secret Annex surrounded by fear with the occasional distant events of the Holocaust recounted would make it an obligatory record of a historical moment. And all of that is there. But it is much more interesting as a girl's evolving relationship with her parents, her sister, the boy that is living with her, and her wry and humorous observations about how all of them get together. And an amazing real-time record of the maturation of her writing and observation as it is written from when she was 13 through 15. Over the course of the book Anne talks about what she is reading and studying, her passion for mythology, and more, all of which shows in the way she constructs and understands her own story.
I loved just about every minute of listening to this audiobook, narrated by Samantha Power herself. She is a great writer with a great story to tell. I loved just about every minute of listening to this audiobook, narrated by Samantha Power herself. She is a great writer with a great story to tell. The memoir is a chronological telling of her life from leaving Ireland as a child to just about every issue she worked on at the United Nations, but somehow it works as a unified narrative arc with characters and themes that reappear, well chosen details to illustrate bigger points, and a process that includes both change (“education”) but also a lot of continuity (“idealist”).
Often one rushes through the early years in a biography or memoir, but in this one they are fascinating and would have been a great standalone even if Power never went on to her bigger public role. The issues Power confronted and her perspective on them were well told. Personally I found her accounts of major events that I had barely paid attention to (e.g., her helping the United States to get involved to reduce violence in the Central African Republic) was more interesting than her perspective on the more familiar conflict in Syria. But all of it was very much worth reading....more
The best portrait of what it means to do research--especially abstract mathematical research--that I have ever read. It might even top G.H. Hardy's A The best portrait of what it means to do research--especially abstract mathematical research--that I have ever read. It might even top G.H. Hardy's A Mathematician's Apology.
Cédric Villani does not tell but instead shows. Specifically, through a combination of diary entries, reprinted emails, and other material, he shows the almost daily process of collaboration that over the period of about a year led from a rough idea to a published paper. The progress depends on his own curiosity, his talks with colleagues--whether it is someone down the hall who notices a link in an equation on his whiteboard or the brutal comments he gets from seminars and referees. And his progress depends on lots and lots of work, dead ends, and returning to basics in new areas.
I say that Villani shows but not tells because he makes no attempt at all to simplify any of the complex mathematical language and even includes pages and pages of equations. There is no expectation that the reader will come close to following these (in fact, he writes that even mathematicians outside of his speciality would not follow most of it). But that is not the point. The book does not leave you thinking that you understand mathematics in general or even the theorem that he spends 250 pages discussing--I still have only a faint idea of what it is about and an even fainter idea of how it was proven. But the book does leave you with a much better understanding of how math is done.
The book also has a certain poetry to it, highlighted by the fact that it is literally interspersed with the occasional poem or discussion of the manga or Neil Gaiman that Villani is reading. But even these interludes are as much about how the mind can and can't switch between topics as it is about the topic Villani is switching to....more
Well written (and well narrated by the author in the Audible version), Future Sex begins with dating/hookup apps and ends with birth control and in beWell written (and well narrated by the author in the Audible version), Future Sex begins with dating/hookup apps and ends with birth control and in between has chapters that explore everything from polyamory to online chatrooms. The book is largely based on reporting, telling about various aspects of "Future Sex" (although much of it is not really future and some is decidedly retro to the days of free love in the 1960s) through the eyes of a few characters in each chapter. But she also inserts herself, her observations, and occasionally her dipping her toe in an experimenting as well. The tone is generally non-judgmental, she is striving for an answer that is more gender/love/attraction fluid than the traditional marriage with children, she celebrates the fact that she thinks we're moving closer to it, but never really finds it herself in a fully satisfying way....more
I recommend listening to the audio version of J.D. Vance reading his insightful memoir which provides a fascinating glimpse into his perspective on trI recommend listening to the audio version of J.D. Vance reading his insightful memoir which provides a fascinating glimpse into his perspective on travelling between two worlds and the uses and limits of public policy in addressing what he sees as a problem with a large cultural component....more
I was aware that not having read Persepolis was a major failure on my part. I was not aware of just how major a failure it was until I actually read tI was aware that not having read Persepolis was a major failure on my part. I was not aware of just how major a failure it was until I actually read the book. Wow. Beautifully drawn and written, powerfully honest, an amazing large canvas story about the Iranian revolution set against an amazing small story about one girl’s coming of age. Fully deserves its classic status and to be read by just about everyone. (I also particularly like memoirs about growing up by people my age because I like to picture what I was doing at, say, age 10 in 1980–in this case something rather different than Marjane Satrapi was, have the same soft spot for novels set in the New York of my childhood like Rececca Stead’s When You Reach Me.)
The Complete Persepolis collects all four of the original volumes of what Satrapi calls a “comic book” not a “graphic novel.” It begins with a higher ratio of events to personal narrative, although still a lot of both, as Satrapi goes through her initial enthusiasm for the revolution and then her disillusionment. What is particularly interesting is the ups and downs, her patriotism is renewed by the start of war but then diminished again when Iran chooses to continue it. The same pattern occurs later, her initial enthusiasm for Iran when she returns from school in Austria again gives way to her frustration about her inability to live her free lifestyle in a repressive country.
By the second half it is a higher ratio of personal narrative to events, although still a lot of both, as parties in Tehran are punctuated by raids by the fundamentalist police and parties in Vienna are punctuated by their much lower stakes politics.
I read this for enjoyment not instruction, but I can’t think of many books that better exemplify the fact that learning more about the perspective of people similar to you in some ways but different from you in others—especially in their circumstances—helps foster greater sympathy, understanding, and would make us better people. If it didn’t threaten to ruin the enjoyment, I would say that would be a reason to make this more widely assigned in schools than, say, To Kill a Mockingbird is today....more
The second part of That Arab of the Future is just as good as the first. A memoir told through the eyes of a half-Syrian, half-French boy brought to SThe second part of That Arab of the Future is just as good as the first. A memoir told through the eyes of a half-Syrian, half-French boy brought to Syria by his father as he observes his father's irrational love of Syria, Assad's dictatorship, his appalling school, and frankly not much of any sentimental value--not even his trips to France to see his grandparents. The drawings and the text work well together and you feel the character from the first part growing up into his own opinions, ever so slightly, leaving me hoping for more parts of this compelling memoir....more
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