Wood, Levison "Eastern Horizons"

Wood, Levison "Eastern Horizons. Hitchhiking the Silk Road" - 2017

I love stories about travels, I loves stories about the Middle and Far East, so this book sounded just like the right one for me.

And it was. Levison Wood tells us, how he travelled at the age of 22, first through Russia, then through Georgia and Turkey into Iran, from there to Afghanistan, then Pakistan and finally into the country he wanted to reach all along: India.

This was  a wonderful book for anyone who would love to do such a trip themselves but can't for whatever reason. As a woman, I doubt it would have been the same as it was for the author and the other men he met along the road. So, I am glad I can see it through his eyes.

I see that he has written more books like this, I should probably go and read them, as well.

From the back cover:

"Levison Wood was only 22 when he decided to hitch-hike from England to India through Russia, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, but he wasn't the conventional follower of the hippy trail. A fascination with the deeds of the early explorers, a history degree in the bag, an army career already planned and a shoestring budget of £750 - including for the flight home - he was determined to find out more about the countries of the Caucasus and beyond - and meet the people who lived and worked there. Eastern Horizons is a true traveller's tale in the tradition of the best of the genre, populated by a cast of eccentric characters; from mujahideen fighters to the Russian mafia. Along the way he meets some people who showed great hospitality, while others would rather have murdered him... 

This book confirms that Levison Wood, Winner of the 2016 Edward Stanford Adventure Travel Book Of The Year Award, has indeed 'breathed new life into adventure travel ' (Michael Palin)"

Emcke, Carolin "Echoes of Violence"

Emcke, Carolin "Echoes of Violence: Letters from a War Reporter" (German: Von den Kriegen. Briefe an Freunde) - 2004

I learned about Carolin Emcke when she was awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade and I wanted to read one of her books every since. Now I found one and am happy to say, it was worth the wait.

The author is a journalist, covering mainly war areas and she has written e-mails to her friend every time she returned from one of her journeys. Here, she published them. She visited Afghanistan, Columbia, Iraq, Kosovo, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Romania and the USA (before and after September 11th), and reports about her meetings with affected people. A brilliant account of what war can do to a people. If we didn't know it before, we should certainly learn it from this book. War is stupid! War is terrible! War should not be allowed! For any reason. Put the leaders in one room and let them fight about their problems themselves.

I have to include one quote from the book:
"History is the object of a construction whose place is formed not in homogenous and empty time, but in that which is fulfilled by the here-and-now." Walter Benjamin

From the back cover:

"Echoes of Violence is an award-winning collection of personal letters to friends from a foreign correspondent who is trying to understand what she witnessed during the iconic human disasters of our time--in Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, and New York City on September 11th, among many other places. Originally addressing only a small group of friends, Carolin Emcke started the first letter after returning from Kosovo, where she saw the aftermath of ethnic cleansing in 1999. She began writing to overcome her speechlessness about the horrors of war and her own sense of failure as a reporter. Eventually, writing a letter became a ritual Emcke performed following her return from each nightmare she experienced. First published in 2004 to great acclaim, Echoes of Violence in 2005 was named German political book of the year and was a finalist for the international Lettre-Ulysses award for the art of reportage.

Combining narrative with philosophic reflection, Emcke describes wars and human rights abuses around the world--the suffering of civilians caught between warring factions in Colombia, the heartbreaking plight of homeless orphans in Romania, and the near-slavery of garment workers in Nicaragua. Freed in the letters from journalistic conventions that would obscure her presence as a witness, Emcke probes the abyss of violence and explores the scars it leaves on landscapes external and internal."

Carolin Emcke received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (Friedenspreis) in 2016.

Rushdie, Salman "Midnight's Children"

Rushdie, Salman "Midnight's Children" - 1981

I love to read books that challenge my brain. However, I found this one extremely hard to follow. Apparently, this book has been nominated the "Booker of Bookers", it's supposed to be the best Booker prize winner of the first 25 years.

What I really liked about it was that the life of our protagonist mirrored that of the Indian nation since its independence. Even though I have read several books about India and its history, there was still a lot of information in there that I hadn't heard about. The book certainly is a very peculiar mixture of historical fiction and magic realism in a way I haven't seen this before.

It is certainly worth reading but you have to take your time to take it all in. Maybe then you will be able to fully understand this quote: "Who what am I? My answer: I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done, of everything done-to-me. I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world affected was affected by mine. I am anything that happens after I've gone which would not have happened if I had not come. Nor am I particularly exceptional in this matter; each 'I', everyone of the now-six-hundred-million-plus of us, contains a similar multitude. I repeat for the last time: to understand me, you'll have to swallow a world."

I also think you have to be ready for this book. It is very intense and touches so many subjects, so many parts about yourself, you can't read it in between anything else. I usually read about four or five books at a time, I couldn't with this one and even after that, I wasn't able to read for a while.

A difficult book - but very gripping, it's totally worth picking up.

From the back cover: 

 

"Born at the stroke of midnight at the exact moment of India's independence, Saleem Sinai is a special child. However, this coincidence of birth has consequences he is not prepared for: telepathic powers connect him with 1,000 other 'midnight's children' all of whom are endowed with unusual gifts. Inextricably linked to his nation, Saleem's story is a whirlwind of disasters and triumphs that mirrors the course of modern India at its most impossible and glorious."

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.

Mortenson, Greg & Bryan, Mike "Stones into Schools"

Mortenson, Greg & Bryan, Mike "Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan" - 2009

After having read Greg Mortenson's "Three Cups of Tea.: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time" in our book club in 2005, I was delighted that his follow-up was chosen as one of our reads for this year.

Quite a few of us had read "Three Cups of Tea" but you can easily read this just on its own because he gives a good introduction and also revisits stations of his projects throughout the book.

We all loved it, thought this was even better than the first one, maybe it was because he had a different co-writer or he was getting further with his project, whatever, it was a very pleasurable read.

We could not help thinking about him and his wife. They raised lovely kids. He has a great strength of character and patience. If he is a hero, his wife is a saint.

He describes his local co-workers as "The Dirty Dozen", they reminded us more of the United Nations, and being the head of such a diverse group is a great achievement.

Even though someone said she had more questions after than before, and we all agreed to that, we did find the book has a great message. Education is important, especially for women. Being able to read is so essential. If you cannot read, you cannot achieve anything.

Someone quoted "Teach a man and you teach an individual, teach a woman and you teach a generation". This is true, today more than ever.

We also learned that it is very important that help is coordinated, we have to know what people need. And: Listen more, speak less.

My favourite quote from the book: "When you take the time to actually listen, with humility, to what people have to say, it's amazing what you can learn. Especially if people who are doing the talking also happen to be children."

We discussed this in our international book club in April 2011.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2023.

From the back cover:

"From the author of the #1 bestseller Three Cups of Tea, the continuing story of this determined humanitarian's efforts to promote peace through education.

In this dramatic first-person narrative, Greg Mortenson picks up where Three Cups of Tea left off in 2003, recounting his relentless, ongoing efforts to establish schools for girls in Afghanistan; his extensive work in Azad Kashmir and Pakistan after a massive earthquake hit the region in 2005; and the unique ways he has built relationships with Islamic clerics, militia commanders, and tribal leaders. He shares for the first time his broader vision to promote peace through education and literacy, as well as touching on military matters, Islam, and women-all woven together with the many rich personal stories of the people who have been involved in this remarkable two-decade humanitarian effort.

Since the 2006 publication of Three Cups of Tea, Mortenson has traveled across the U.S. and the world to share his vision with hundreds of thousands of people. He has met with heads of state, top military officials, and leading politicians who all seek his advice and insight. The continued phenomenal success of Three Cups of Tea proves that there is an eager and committed audience for Mortenson's work and message."

Mortenson, Greg & Relin, David Oliver "Three Cups of Tea"

Mortenson, Greg & Relin, David Oliver "Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time" - 2006 

A Pakistani proverb says "when you share the first cup of tea you're a stranger, with the second cup you are a friend, and with the third cup you become family."

Greg Mortenson gets lost on his way back from K2. He reaches a tiny little village in Pakistan and meets the most helpful people in the world. He see the conditions they live in and promises to come back and build them a school. He keeps his promise and carries on to build more than 50 schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

This book is about his way from being a carefree single mountaineer to a family father who spends a lot of time helping people in remote corners of the world who get help from nobody.

What a guy. My admiration for Greg Mortenson climbed with every page I read. I would love to meet him - and his wife. The achievements just one guy can reach, it's unbelievable. This story shows how people can change the world, can contribute to make the living conditions of others better. Not all of us will be able to climb K2 (or any other large mountain) but the author shows us that there is always a goal that you can try to achieve, a mountain to conquer.

The description of all the pitfalls are heart rendering but him overcoming them makes you hope for a better future. If the world were full of Greg Mortensons - what a world that would be.

I also loved his admiration of the local people, his ability to tune into their culture and language. Okay, he does have an ear for languages but he is willing to understand his "neighbour", no matter how far away he lives.

I also admire his wife. She deserves some kind of medal.

Needless to say, I love this book. It was chosen as the favourite of our book club reads that year.

We discussed this in our international book club in May 2009.

From the back cover:

"Anyone who despairs of the individual’s power to change lives has to read the story of Greg Mortenson, a homeless mountaineer who, following a 1993 climb of Pakistan’s treacherous K2, was inspired by a chance encounter with impoverished mountain villagers and promised to build them a school. Over the next decade he built fifty-five schools - especially for girls - that offer a balanced education in one of the most isolated and dangerous regions on earth. As it chronicles Mortenson’s quest, which has brought him into conflict with both enraged Islamists and uncomprehending Americans, Three Cups of Tea combines adventure with a celebration of the humanitarian spirit."

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2022.

We discussed Greg Mortenson's second book "Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan" in international book club in April 2011.