Duke's book club

[Prometheus]

 

 

[wyre]

[OdaySomali]

To revive this thread.

 

I thought about starting a thread in which SOLers could share the books they have read or are reading. After a quick search I found three threads related to the search terms I used ('book club'); one from 2003, one from 2006 and the most recent which is this one.

 

I must say, good on Duke for taking the initiative and starting this thread. Having browsed the various pages of this thread, we need a more uniform way of sharing information about a book.

 

So, I propose the following:

 

1) Post the title and author of a book OR cover.

 

2) Post a short synopsis of what the book is a about (can be in your own words or some else's) - be sure not to reveal too much of the story line though.

 

3) Tell us what you thought of it and or any other comments.

 

Mahadsanid.

 

---

 

NOTES:

 

Posting just the title or cover of a book does not suffice.

 

Be not afraid of posting about books that you have read or are reading, writting in a language other than English.

[OdaySomali]

EXAMPLE

 

Black Mamba Boy - Nadifa Mohamed

 

 

In this debut novel, Nadifa Mohamed takes as her source material her father's childhood journey across Africa, which begins in the Yemeni port city of Aden where ten-year-old Jama loses his mother, his only emotional mooring in the world, and embarks on a great Odyssean voyage northwards, to find his absent father.

 

After his mother dies, Jama, bereft, hungry and alone in the great, troubled African continent of the 1930s, seething with its twin terrors of poverty and war, sets out to find his father - an inveterate dreamer - who abandoned him in early childhood. The journey, which sees Jama buffeted by the terrifying demographics of famine, internecine conflict, and Mussolini's army - a cruel, occupying master - drives him into the heart of Eritrea where his father is rumoured to be.

 

This country becomes the locus of all the love he has lost and may find, and only a child's boundless hope keeps him from losing heart. The endeavour appears unending, Herculean, at times, yet Jama persists. "How far is it from here to this Kano?" he asks a fellow traveller in the midst of the trek. "Three years walk" is the sobering reply.

 

 

The journey ends in disappointment, yet Jama is undefeated. His rite-of-passage is the lesson he learns in how to be a father in a way his own failed to be. On a grander scale, his lone walk through African comes to represent what Mohamed calls the "hunger for a homeland".

My comments

 

I have not comments as this just an example. Sounds like an interesting read.

[grasshopper]

^^ I'm reading Black Mamba Boy now...I love Nadifa Mohamed's writing style.

 

Just picked this up today - sounds good.

[Al-Miskiin]

The holocaust industry by Norman finkelstein

 

 

Very short: The book is about how the jews years after years are using the holocaust as an excuse to do what ever they want, especially political and financial gain. They have made the holocaoust as an industry, and the author finkelstein is a jew himself, and is clearly sick of this Hypocrisy .

 

My comments: Very interesting book, that deals with some seriouse issues, like how some people exploits the memory of the Nazi Holocaust, and how we as the masses are fooled by this everyday the whole year. The author writes some interesting books, and this is one of his best.

[Archdemos]

 

Thucydides' classic history of the thirty-year clusterf--k known as the Peloponessian War. Takes you back to 432BC, where the glory of the Persian War is a distant memory and a grasping, ambitious Athens is pushing the limits of their peace treaty with the arch-conservative Sparta. As in World War I, a complex network of alliances turns a conflict between two minor cities into a conflagration that devours the Greek world.

 

This was a book that I'd been meaning to read since I blew it off in college, and I'm glad I finally got back to it. As with all books from the pre-industrial era, you have to slow down and sink into a world where attention spans weren't determined by e-mail pings and constant background noise. Once you do that, it's fascinating. (review)

 

“In a democracy, someone who fails to get elected to office can always console himself with the thought that there was something not quite fair about it.”

― Thucydides

[SeeKer]

I am actually not reading but merely listening to audiobooks recently. After finishing the Harry Potter series a few years ago, I had a thirst for books in series so I dived back into J.R. Tolkien series, Gregory Maguire series, recently the Hunger Games series and now I am reading the Game of Thrones series. Since I can't write about a series of books I suggest wikipedia the books or better yet, buy the books. What other series have SOLers found interesting because I am about done with Game of Thrones series?