Books I've Read - March 2009
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I have posted a review at the thread there: http://sgforums.com/forums/1853/topics/350035
I shall repost here too:
Benazir Bhutto
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Reconciliation
Islam, Democracy, and the WestThis is a very good book for people who wants to learn more about religion n the current situation of terrorism with respect to Islam.
Chapters
1 The Path Back
2 The Battle Within Islam: Democracy Versus Dictatorship, Moderation Versus Extremism
3 Islam And Democracy: History And Practice
4 The Case Of Pakistan
5 Is The Clash Of Civilizations Inevitable?
6 ReconciliationThe whole of the book is not an autobiography (like many other books on Benazir). The contents of the book was a collaboration with the author Mark Siegel who helped took down notes for her and can be considered completed before Benazir was assasinated. It seems to me that Benazir deep down in her guts knew that she will be assassinated, therefore hastened to complete the whole book. I read with sadness throughout, because while reading I can feel Benazir as a very strong woman who sacrificed herself in the modern male-dominated Islamic society.
The current situation in Pakistan is a mess (eg. the beautiful SWAT valley in now totally under the Pakhtun's and Taliban's control already). You can follow-up more about the current situation of Pakistan in the internet after reading Benazir's Reconciliation.
I bought this book about 3 months ago from popular. Has soft cover (black cover - smaller) and hard cover (brown cover - bigger) versions. Hard cover price roughly $42++, soft cover $24.45. Soft cover & hard cover from different publishers, but content of the 2 books is exactly the same, down to every wording, spacing, and pagination. This book can be found also at Harris, Times, and maybe other places.
I strong recommend anyone with interest to current world situation to read this book, but no doubt be open to contradicting views out there, as there are many anti-Benazir propaganda in the media too. Also, when reading the portion regarding the independence fight of the Awami League for Bangladesh, take note of Benazir's tone (i feel that she preferred to tone this portion down).
The book cannot be found in any national libraries as yet.
My Readability Rating (for people interested in this area of topic):
/ out of 5~~~~~~~~~~~
Some praises for the book
"This is one of the most gripping and important books of our era. It's a powerful personal narrative of an astonishingly brave woman. It's also a brilliant manisfesto for challenging radical Islam. Benazir Bhutto was an intense but charming woman driven by a crucial mission. Her death makes this beautiful book all the more poignant, and also more necessary." -Walter Isaacson
"This is a courageous and powerful answer to hatred and intolerance, written by an extraordinary woman. Reading Benazir Bhutto's Reconciliation shows just how much we lost with her death. You'll finish it and mourn for what might have been." -Arianna Huffington
"Pakistan has become the critical battlefield in the so-called war on terror. Reconciliation is the story of a courageous woman and her struggle for democracy and moderation in Islam. Benazir Bhutto, not the extremists who killed her, represented the vast majority of Pakistani Muslims, and this book is a reminder of how much we have lost." -Peter Galbraith
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My most memorable excerpt from the book:
"About thirty minutes before I went down to loosen my sandals in the compartment on the lower deck of the truck, I saw a man holding up a baby. The baby was dressed in PPP colors and was about one of two years old. The man gesticulated repeatedly to me to take the baby. I gesticulated to the crowd to make way for him. But when the crowd parted, the man would not come forward. Instead he would try to hand the baby to someone in the crowd. Worried that the baby would fall and be trampled upon or be lost, I would gesticulate no, you bring the baby to me. Finally he pointed to the security guard. I asked the security guard to let him up on the truck. However by the time he came to the truck, I was going to the compartment. Agha Siraj Durrani, a PPP parliamentarian, was watching the access to the truck by the stair. When the man tried to hand the baby up the truck, Agha Siraj told him to get lost. The man then went to a policemobile to the left of the truck, which refused to take the baby. The man moved to the policemobile in front of the first. A woman councilor of the PPP, Rukhsana Faisal Boloch, was on this mobile, as was a cameraman. As the man tried to hand the baby to the second policemobile, the first policemobile made an announcement: "Don't take the baby, don't take the baby, don't let the baby up on the truck." Both these policemobiles were exactly parallel to where I was sitting in the armored truck. We suspect the baby's clothes were lined with plastic explosives. As the man scuffled with the police in the van to hand the baby over, the first explosion took place on the van. Everyone in that van was killed, as were those around it. Human flesh, blood, and body pieces flew everywhere. The blood and gore rose up to the truck, sticking to the clothes, hair, and hands of the people I had been standing up with earlier...."
(note: PPP stands for Pakistan's Peoples Party, led by Benazir herself)
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Originally posted by Keii:
Oh wow, tis an honour, but I shall kindly decline. Thy responsibility is too much for me to beareth.
I think you need to read my Edo stuff. I think you'll like it too.
Actually, pai seh... anyone who hangs in here frequently is already some kinda 'honorary member'.
Sorry... very cheapskate, hor?
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For some strange reason, I can't settle in with a book recently! Sigh...
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Wah! U all really can read!
The so call chim-est book I've read on history/war/arts is "Krait: The Fishing Boat That Went to War"
http://www.selectbooks.com.sg/getTitle.cfm?SBNum=14045
It's about sabotage operations conducted by some Australians during the Jap occupation of SG. They took a fishing boat all the way from Aus, thru indonesia, to reach SG from the south. Then they set limpet mines on the jap warships anchored in the harbour. The operation was a success, the jap didn't know what hit them (at that point) but it fueled the setting up of the dread Kempetti.
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I'm halfway through:
The HeartMath Solution,
by Doc Childre and Howard MartinThe definitive book about HeartMath for personal development and well-being. Contains leading-edge science, practical information and easy-to-use techniques to increase the intuitive, creative, heart-centered aspects of your personality and bring more heart intelligence into your life. Cutting-edge science is combined with the warmth and humor of anecdotal stories and examples to make this book a joy to read and a clear roadmap to actualize your full potential.
Finished.
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Everyone here seems to be reading something quite heavy-going
For me, I can only tahan reading something 'light' and where I can turn the pages really fast and don't have to think so much. For this month, I'm reading Sheila O'Flanagan's Someone special.
Synopsis
Someone Special is about an extended family and how all the various members of it get on (or don’t get on) with each other.
Someone Special’s main character is Romy, who is forced to come home from her job as a forensic archaeologist in Australia when her mother, Veronica goes into hospital for a back operation.
Romy is Veronica’s youngest daughter, from her second marriage to Declan. Veronica also has a son, Darragh, and daughter, Kathryn, from her first marriage to Tom, and she’s recently divorced for the third time (although no children from that one!). Romy and Veronica are very different people. Romy isn’t into glamour and fashion though Veronica loves it – and so does Darragh’s wife, Giselle. Kathryn, Romy’s half-sister, is part of a power-couple and lives and works in New York. She’s very smart and sassy but has problems of her own. Darragh is the managing director of the family company and likes to see himself as a mover and shaker although the company is starting to lose clients.
Romy finds herself caught up in their problems as well as trying to accept her father’s second wife, Larissa and their daughter, Erin, too. Meanwhile she’s missing Australia, her work and her friends, particularly Keith, her best friend, who’s suddenly not as easy to know as he was before….
Sample chapter for anyone who's interested.
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Just finished: Nothing in This Book Is True, But It's Exactly How Things Are by Bob Frissell
This ambitious book is a personal psycho-spiritual journey, a theorization on the meaning of the monuments of Mars, a guidebook for transcending present three-dimensional limitations, and an account of our function within the grand celestial battle between internal and external knowledge. The newly revised and expanded edition of this cult classic features photos and illustrations throughout, and adds the Lucifer Rebellion, the solar storm, and the final three breaths of the merkaba meditation. The author emphasizes the importance of meditation for promoting the understanding of and connection to the metaphysical.
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After 1421, I just finished reading:
Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith (Yeah I know the author's name is funny)
WHEN FEAR SILENCES A NATION,
ONE MAN MUST SPEAK THE TRUTHTHE SOVIET UNION, 1953
Stalin's iron grip is at its tightest, enforced by the Minsitry of State Secuirty - a secret police force whose brutality is no secret at all. Under its regime, people are commanded to believe the crime simply does not exist.
But when the body of a young boy is discovered on train tracks in Moscow, Office Leo Demidov - a war hero, utterly dedicated to the Minsitry - is surprised to hear that the boy's family is convinced it was murder. Leo's superiors order him to ignore this and he is obliged to obey. But something in him knows there is more.
Sensing his doubts, the Ministry threatens Leo, giving him no choice but to turn his back on his oce-beloved Party. Disgraced, exlied with his wife Raisa to a town deep in the Ural Mountains, Leo realises that the crime he helped cover up in the capital has happened here too.
The murder of another child.
Risking everything, Leo and Raisa will pursue a horrifying killer - even if doing so makes them enemies of the State . . .
Intimately connected with real events, Child 44 is both a thriller of extraordinary power and a harrowing portrayal of the terror inflicted upon people by their own governments, examining the disturbing truth of what it means to survive beneath a dictatorship - and what happens when one man decides to fight back.
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The murderer of this story traces loosely the crimes of Andrei Chikatilo (also known as The Red Ripper or The Rostove Ripper)
It also provides some insights on the lives of the people under Stalin's rule and the horrors and after effects of war (not that much actually)
The book is well-paced and easy to read. It also shows how easily one can "fall from grace" and how the changes to one's environment can change the person's perspective of life.
The book is multi-facade to me and more than just a thriller. It potrays the emotions and the relationship between the lead character and the people around him, the things people do to survive and the reason why the murderer in the story killed is something I would call trivial that the magnitude of the murders is multiplied.
I have not picked up a thriller that thrilled me for some time and this book did.
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Bought a box of books at VivoCity on Saturday.
They are box set of Dan Brown Books.
Just completed The Da Vinci Code & Angels & Demons.
Now starting on Deception Point
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i'm reading God is my CEO by Larry Julian
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Last one for the month
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The Monk who sold his Ferrari is the story of Julian Mantle, a superstar lawyer whose out-of-balance lifestyle leads him to an almost fatal heart attack in a packed courtroom. His physical collapse brings on a spiritual crisis that forces him to confront the condition of his life and seek answers to life's most important questions. Hoping to find happiness and fulfilment, he embarks upon an extraordinary odyssey to an ancient culture, where he discovers a powerful system to release the potential of his mind, body and soul and learns to live with greater passion, purpose and peace.
Brilliantly blending timeless spiritual wisdom of the East with cutting-edge success principles of the West, this inspiring tale shows you a step-by-step pathway for living with greater courage, balance, abundance and joy. -
Completed Digital Fortress by Dan Brown.
The series of Dan Brown books that started with 'Da Vinci Code'
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What happened to the book thread?
Just read:
Northern Lights aka the The Golden Compass.
The Subtle Knife same as The Golden Compass except it probably the episode two.
Both books by Philip Pullman
Think the storyline is along the lines of Narnia except its set in another dimension.