Yousafzai, Malala; Lamb, Christina "I am Malala"

Yousafzai, Malala; Lamb, Christina "I am Malala. The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban" - 2013

Everybody talks about freedom all the time. Freedom of education, freedom of speech, freedom of religion. We all know about the Taliban and what they do to the people in the countries they occupy, especially the women.

And here is a young girl who has always spoken out for freedom, who has been fighting for education her whole life, disregarding any threats she received, disregarding anything that we in our Western world would notice right away if we had to live like that. We take so many things for granted. We send our children to school and don't even think about the fact that this right had to be fought for at some point.

This young girl went to school even though it was against the law in her country and got shot by some madmen, some extremists who believe that if you keep the people stupid you can rule over them a little longer. They are right, but you don't have to have an education to be smart, some people are not that stupid, even if you deny them the education. Malala is a great example for them. As a "reward" for her efforts, she was shot and could have died if it hadn't been for some determined doctors to save her life.

In this book, Malala describes her life before and after the shooting, her life and that of her sisters in Pakistan.

Malala Yousafzai is a courageous and brave woman who will get far in this world. I know she will continue to fight for the right of all girls to get a decent education. I hope we can all support her in our own way.

I also loved that a non-fiction writer who I admire very much and who knows a lot about that part of the world helped Malala write down her story. I have read "The Sewing Circles of Herat" and "The Africa House" by Christina Lamb and thought they were both excellent.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"I come from a country that was created at midnight. When I almost died it was just after midday.
When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education.

On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, when she was fifteen, she almost paid the ultimate price. She was shot in the head at point-blank range while riding the bus home from school, and few expected her to survive. 

Instead, Malala's miraculous recovery has taken her on an extraordinary journey from a remote valley in northern Pakistan to the halls of the United Nations in New York. At sixteen, she has become a global symbol of peaceful protest and the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize laureate.I Am Malala is the remarkable tale of a family uprooted by global terrorism, of the fight for girls' education, of a father who, himself a school owner, championed and encouraged his daughter to write and attend school, and of brave parents who have a fierce love for their daughter in a society that prizes sons.
It will make you believe in the power of one person's voice to inspire change in the world."

Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi  received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 "for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education."

I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.

Lamb, Christina "The Africa House"

Lamb, Christina "The Africa House: The True Story of an English Gentleman and His African Dream" - 1999

This was the first book I read by Christina Lamb. I have since read "The Sewing Circles of Herat" and have become a big fan of her.

This biography is about Sir Stewart Gore-Brown, someone I had never heard about in my life. And still, his life is interesting and the book was captivating. The protagonist was one of the last colonialists. He owned a big house in Africa, almost a castle, something he couldn't have afforded back in his home country, Britain.

Being one of the last to start such an enterprise, he certainly belonged to the more arrogant and naive types, someone who wanted to turn back time and be one of the landholders, the lords, the people who owned people.

Christina Lamb has a great feeling for other people and she manages to describe their lives in a way that you imagine you've been there. I will certainly read more books of this talented author.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"In the last decades of the British Empire, Stewart Gore-Browne build himself a feudal paradise in Northern Rhodesia; a sprawling country estate modelled on the finest homes of England, complete with uniformed servants, daily muster parades and rose gardens. He wanted to share it with the love of his life, the beautiful unconventional Ethel Locke King, one of the first women to drive and fly. She, however, was nearly twenty years his senior, married and his aunt. Lorna, the only other woman he had ever cared for, had married another many years earlier. Then he met Lorna's orphaned daughter, so like her mother that he thought he had seen a ghost. It seemed he had found companionship and maybe love - but the Africa house was his dream and it would be a hard one to share.

From a world of British colonials in Africa, with their arrogance and vision, to the final sad denouement. Leaving the once majestic house abandoned and a forgotten ruin of a bygone age Christina Lamb evokes a story full of passion, adventure and final betrayal."

Lamb, Christina "The Sewing Circles of Herat"

Lamb, Christina "The Sewing Circles of Herat: A Personal Voyage Through Afghanistan" - 2002 

I have read quite a few books about Afghanistan over the years since there seem to be a lot available right now. This was by far the best one of them. (All the others were fiction.)

Christina Lamb is a journalist who knows her job. She had been in Afghanistan before 9/11 and then went back straight after when almost no western correspondent was able to get there. She met a lot of people from all sides - politicians, Taliban, normal people, especially women. And she gives a great insight into this tormented country. You almost feel like you're there with her.

Great book about this topic.

From the back cover:

"Ten years ago, Christina Lamb reported on the war the Afghan people were fighting against the Soviet Union. Now, back in Afghanistan, she has written an extraordinary memoir of her love affair with the country and its people.

Long haunted by her experiences in Afghanistan, Lamb returned there after last year's attack on the World Trade Centre to find out what had become of the people and places that had marked her life as a young graduate.This time seeing the land through the eyes of a mother and experienced foreign correspondent, Lamb's journey brings her in touch with the people no one else is writing about: the abandoned victims of almost a quarter century of war.

‘Of all books about Afghanistan, Christina Lamb’s is the most revealing and rewarding…a personal, perceptive and moving account of bravery in the face of staggering difficulties.’ Anthony Sattin, Sunday Times

'As an account of how Afghanistan got into its present state, and of the making of the grotesque regime of the Taliban, this book could not possibly be bettered. Brilliant.’ Matthew Leeming, Spectator

'Lamb’s book combines a love of Afghanistan with a fearless search for the human stories behind the past twenty-three years of war…Her book is not only a necessary education for the Western reader in the political warring that generated the torture, murder and poverty, but also a stirring lament for the country of ruins that was once better known for its poetry and mosques.’ James Hopkin, The Times"

We discussed this in our international book club in May 2005.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

I have also read "The Africa House: The True Story of an English Gentleman and His African Dream", just as interesting.