The Translator...random thoughts

First of all, let me thank Megan once again for passing this book along to me...so very sweet of her! I'll be passing it along to one of you soon as well, but Rich wants to read it first.

The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur by Daoud Hari. The title alone clues one in. Darfur. It's not going to be an easy read.

And, of course, it wasn't. How could it possibly be easy to read about the depraved acts that man plies upon man. Daoud Hari does not share horror after horror after horror with us, however. Though he himself witnessed numerous horrors, and heard countless more from refugees as he worked as an interpreter for the United Nations and U.S. State Department as they conducted interviews to make a legal determination as to whether genocide was occurring, he shares but a minute fraction of these stories. A minute fraction is enough. In fact, one particular story was enough to cause me nightmares. I've read "tough" books before, but this is the first time I've ever had a nightmare as a result. A story of a loving father, tied to a tree and beaten. Then forced to watch his 4-year-old daughter's brutal murder.

In quite a different way, it was an easy read. Not content-wise, of course, but in the way it is written. Daoud Hari writes in such a simple, straight-forward manner. He talks directly to the reader. He even manages to inject humor into his story. But he is never disrespectful. Never.

While the story he tells is a personal one, it is also a story of his home, Darfur. And one of the things that makes these horrors all the harder to bear is the fact that this is happening now. Not ancient history. But current event. Not past. But present.

And still, Dauod Hari is a man of great hope. He writes in the introduction:

"If God must break your leg He will at least teach you to limp"--so it is said in Africa. This book is my poor limping, a modest account that cannot tell every story that deserves telling. I have seen and heard many things in Darfur that have broken my heart. I bring the stories to you because I know most people want others to have good lives, and, when they understand the situation, they will do what they can to steer the world back toward kindness.

"...they will do what they can to steer the world back toward kindness." For a man who has seen what he has seen to write these words is the most beautiful sign of hope I can possibly imagine.

I really don't know what else to say about this book. Read it. Really.

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If you've reviewed this book (and I know many people have), please leave me a link in the comments and I'll add it here. Thanks.

*Megan of Leafing through Life
*Natasha at Maw Books
*Somer at SomeReads
*Chris at Stuff As Dreams Are Made On

in my own little world of books

This week's Booking through Thursday...

There was a widely bruited-about statistic reported last week, stating that 1 in 4 Americans did not read a single book last year. Clearly, we don’t fall into that category, but . . . how many of our friends do? Do you have friends/family who read as much as you do? Or are you the only person you know who has a serious reading habit?

I was one of the people who found this statistic surprising. Almost everyone I know is a fairly avid reader. (Of course, I should probably admit that I don't actually know that many people!)

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I'm a wee bit behind in my reviews...well, because I hate writing them so much. Because, well, I'm simply not good at it. But I guess I've procrastinated long enough, as tomorrow is the last day to get up this month's Non-Fiction Five.



I finished up And The Band Played On, by Randy Shilts, last week. I'm having a hard time putting into words how I felt about this book. It's not the kind of book that you feel you can say you "enjoyed"...if you know what I mean. But it was a wonderful, powerful story, and I'm definitely glad that I read it.

The subtitle, "Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic," gives one a feel for what the book is about. Randy Shilts tells the story of the early years of the AIDS epidemic in fascinating detail. In fact, as Rich said to me as I was just starting the book, "He probably could have adequately told the story in half the pages." And I would have to agree with that...the story might have adequately been told in less than the 600+ pages of this book. But I don't believe "adequate" was Shilts' goal. He told the complete, uncut version of this real-life drama.

It was a heart-breaking book. At times, I was brought to tears by the overwhelming sadness of it all, and at times, I found myself feeling so angry that I was brought to tears of another form. Somehow AIDS managed to bring out the worst of humankind's failings...indifference, greed, callousness, bigotry, egomania. And sometimes even more damage was done "with good intentions". That's not to say that there were no heroes in the fight to identify and battle this new disease. This book also told their stories.

I can't say that I would recommend this book to everyone. Don't get me wrong...I think it's a wonderful book. For one thing, as I mentioned earlier, it is a long, exhaustive telling of the story. And for another, there are parts that are probably a bit too graphic for some people. (It is not graphic for purposes of sensationalism, but simply for truth's sake.) I would, however, definitely recommend the movie to everyone. The movie obviously leaves much out, but it is very well-done.

One last note, it goes without saying, that I wish Randy Shilts was still alive today. But, on a selfish note, I have to say that I wish he were here to write the sequel to And The Band Played On. The book ends in 1988, but we all know the story of AIDS does not.




I also finished Lethal Practice, by Peter Clement last week. Another one down for the Medical Mystery Madness Reading Challenge. This is the best one I've read for this challenge so far. Still not among the best of this genre that I've read in my lifetime, but really not a bad book at all.

The general story follows the chief of emergency medicine in a Buffalo, NY hospital. He has a true sociopath working for him...he just doesn't know it. But said sociopath fears disclosure, and all kinds of nastiness follow.

A fairly quick read. Was a nice change a pace from the heaviness of my non-fiction choice.




On a final note for the day, I guess it's time for me to concede defeat in Southern Reading Challenge. Tomorrow night it will come to its official end. And I am only half-way through my final selection, A Time to Kill, by John Grisham. (A book I am enjoying immensely, by the way.) I feel bad that I won't finish "in time"...but I will finish. And I have to say a big "Thank You" to Maggie for hosting this challenge. It not only gave me an "excuse" to read To Kill A Mockingbird again, it introduced me to The Secret Life of Bees, which touched my heart (and I doubt I ever would have read if not for this challenge).

two for the price of one

I finished reading The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan this morning. Wonderful, wonderful book. I joke around a lot that I seem to have an addiction problem with these book challenges. But I must say this book epitomizes one of the reasons why I keep joining. If I hadn't joined the The Non-Fiction Five Challenge or The Book Awards Challenge, it is very likely that I would never have gotten around to reading this book. And that would have been my loss.

I've long been stuck in a rut in my reading habits, reading almost nothing but psychological/mystery/political thrillers. These challenges have forced me to expand my horizons. Don't get me wrong...I still love my thrillers, but I've found that I can very much enjoy books from other genres as well. Another case in point...if not for Maggie and her Southern Reading Challenge, it's highly unlikely that I would have read The Secret Life of Bees. And that book now holds a place in my favorite books of all time list.

Anyway, back to The Worst Hard Time. Again, I feel like I really need to come up with a some sort of disclaimer to post with each of my book reviews. Because frankly, I'm just not good at writing them. Simply not a talent I am blessed with. Maybe I'll improve with practice...who knows. But now that I'm off-track again, let me just throw something else in here. If you want to read some phenomenal book reviews, I suggest you visit Nymeth at Things Mean A Lot. Her books reviews are so incredibly beautiful and well-written...she's an incredibly gifted writer!

O.K., O.K., again, back to the book...

The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan tells the story, or maybe I should say "stories", of the Dust Bowl. This is one of those pieces of history that I had merely a passing acquaintance with. Egan, with his wonderful writing, brought this history to life. One of my favorite things about this book was the way he managed to not only convey the "big historical picture", but also told the tale from the perspective of real people. Yes, I learned the history of this area of the Midwest, and learned about all the events that led to this horrendous man-made environmental disaster, and learned about the destruction wrought by the dust storms to this area. But I also got to see this period of time through some very real, very courageous, very hard-working people. That these people survived at all is miraculous...many people didn't. And I have a feeling that these people will stay with me for quite some time. Another thing I really enjoyed about this book was the way he left me wanting to learn more. Not necessarily about the Dust Bowl, as he told what seems to be a very complete, well-rounded version. But about subjects that in one way or another had a connection with this piece of history...everything from the Comanche, to Catherine the Great, to FDR. Anyway, keeping in mind that this is just my opinion...I highly recommend this book. (Annie read this book a few months ago and thoroughly enjoyed it, too.)

(And, of course, we're not the only people to enjoy this book...it did win The National Book Award for Non-Fiction in 2006.)

in the nick of time...

Finally finished my June selection, Kiss Me, Kill Me by Ann Rule, for The Non-Fiction Five Challenge. This was the one book I picked for this challenge that I figured I'd whip right through. Wrong. Took me nearly the entire month. Maybe partially because I was reading other books at the same time, but mostly I think it was because this book just didn't grab me.

I've been wondering a lot about why I enjoy reading true crime to start with. I mean it just somehow seems quite morbid, doesn't it? Obviously it's not because I "like" crime. The best I can come up with is that aside from being a Mommy (which I am blessed to be) and having a career in art (which I was never talented enough for), the only two other fields which really interested me were psychology and detective work. True crime novels, at least the good ones (and this is just my opinion, of course), involve both of these.

And this may be why I didn't really enjoy this particular book. Kiss Me, Kill Me is one of Ann Rule's "crime file" series. I've read several of her books in the past, but I think I've come to realize that it's the books that are entirely about one case that really capture my attention. They provide a much better opportunity to get deep into the psychology of the people involved, as well as a much broader look at the efforts of law enforcement.

Anyway, I'm happy to have finished up my second book for the challenge...I'm actually still on course to finish this one on time. Don't worry, I'm definitely not getting cocky here...I realize I have plenty of time left to fail. LOL

not sure how to go about this...

We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families: Stories From Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch.

I finished reading it last night. I must admit that, in a way, I'd been dreading coming to the end of this book. For the simple reason that I would then have to write a review of it. And I just don't know where to begin.

This book is undoubtedly one of the most powerful books I've ever read. The other night as my husband was heading out to jog, he said, "Enjoy your reading." I answered that "enjoy" just didn't fit this book. It was gut-retching and heart-rending. It was a good thing I wasn't keeping track of tears shed, because I never could have kept up the count.

Before I read this book, I thought I knew a little about the genocide in Rwanda. But it turns out that what I knew about it didn't even begin to scratch the surface. The first page of the book:

Decimation means the killing of every tenth person in a population, and in the spring and early summer of 1994 a program of massacres decimated the Republic of Rwanda. Although the killing was low-tech--performed largely by machete--it was carried out at dazzling speed: of an original population of about seven and a half million, at least eight hundred thousand people were killed in just a hundred days. Rwandans often speak of a million deaths, and they may be right. The dead of Rwanda accumulated at nearly three times the rate of Jewish dead during the Holocaust. It was the most efficient mass killing since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Mr. Gourevitch does an amazing job of relaying the genocide through the eyes of survivors. And he goes well beyond this as well. The heart-breaking story is laid out about all that came before, about what led Rwanda to the genocide of 1994. And the equally heart-breaking story of what came after is exposed. It's not a pretty picture.

I feel totally inadequate in my ability to relate what a truly moving, powerful book this is. As I said earlier, "enjoy" would not be the right word. But I will be forever grateful that I read this book.

all those pesky challenges

Just thought I'd post an update on the quadrillions of challenges I can't seem to stop myself from signing up for. Why? Because I'm so thrilled to say my first challenge--The 30 Day Organizational Challenge--is now behind me! Hooray! I did it! Can you tell I'm pleased with myself? I'll even show you the proof...click here, if you're interested in seeing the photos of my transformation. (Had to answer some questions for the challenge, but if you scroll down a tiny bit you'll get to the "before" and "after" shots.) Yep, I not only got it organized, but I painted the room and made curtains, too.

As for the 10:4 Challenge that I signed up for yesterday, I've decided that twice a month I'm going to try to adopt one new small healthy change. Nothing major...I know myself too well to expect miracles here. But I figure that lots of little changes is better than nothing at all. So my first change is to stop skipping breakfast. I'm just never hungry in the morning. But when I don't have breakfast, by lunch time I'm starving, and in the process of fixing the munchkins lunch I nibble down 3 times as many calories as I would have if I just had a small, sensible breakfast. So that's small change #1.

And as for the multiple book challenges...well, I guess only 3 of them are currently underway: Once Upon a Time Challenge--I'm one book down, 4 to go (by June 21), The Spring Reading Thing Challenge--I'm one book down, 5 to go (by June 21), and The Non-Fiction Five Challenge--0 books down, 5 to go (by Sept. 30). Hmmm...maybe I should go hole up in my new clean little craft room with a big pile of books, huh?

oh no, not another one...

I honestly don't know what I'm thinking here, joining another book challenge. Seriously...I have no hope of finishing the other two. But none-the-less here I go. I've seen the little banner at other blogs, but assumed it had already started. What's that they say about assuming?!! I found out this morning that The Non-Fiction Five Challenge doesn't begin until May. So, I'm signing up. And I'm sure Annie will be signing up and posting her list later today as well. So, without further ado, my list...

1. The Trials of Life: A Natural History of Animal Behavior by David Attenborough
2. We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families: Stories From Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch
3. The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan
4. Kiss Me, Kill Me by Ann Rule
5. And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts

It runs from May-September, so that's only one book a month...but still, at the rate I've been going...wish me luck!