306. Turkey and Iran: Same and Different (April 26, 2009)
307. Siege Attitudes: Sample of Lebanon Civil War Account (April 27, 2009)
308. Modern Day Crusaders: The Ashkenazi Spearhead (April 27, 2009)
309. “Ain Wardet” (Village) by Jabbour Douweihy (Book Review, April 27, 2009)
310. Love: Women in Islam (Part 9, April 27, 2009)
311. China and India Empires: Same and Different (April 28, 2009)
A FLICKERING LIGHT
Returning to her Midwest roots, award-winning author Jane Kirkpatrick draws a page from her grandmother’s photo album to capture the interplay between shadow and light, temptation and faith that marks a woman’s pursuit of her dreams.
She took exquisite photographs,
but her heart was the true image exposed.
Fifteen-year-old Jessie Ann Gaebele loves nothing more than capturing a gorgeous Minnesota landscape when the sunlight casts its most mesmerizing shadows. So when F.J. Bauer hires her in 1907 to assist in his studio and darkroom, her dreams for a career in photography appear to find root in reality.
With the infamous hazards of the explosive powder used for lighting and the toxic darkroom chemicals, photography is considered a man’s profession. Yet Jessie shows remarkable talent in both the artistry and business of running a studio. She proves less skillful, however, at managing her growing attraction to the very married Mr. Bauer.
This luminous coming-of-age tale deftly exposes the intricate shadows that play across every dream worth pursuing-and the irresistible light that beckons the dreamer on.
AURORA:
Wrap yourself in a fantastic journey,
a remarkable commitment, and a spare and splendid story
Master storyteller Jane Kirkpatrick extols the beautiful treasures, unknown to a wider public, rediscovered in the Old Aurora Colony of Oregon’s lush Willamette Valley. The people and legacy of Aurora, a utopian community founded in the mid-1800s, will stir your imagination, hopes, and dreams; and remind you that every life matters-that our lives are the stories other people read first.
~Featuring~
Unique and treasured quilt pattern variations
More than 100 photographs, many never-before published, from 1850 to today
Cherished stories from Aurora descendants
Rich images of fine crafts from the Aurora Colony and priv ate collections
An introduction by renowned American artist John Houser
Aurora is about the difference every ordinary life can make-and a beautiful celebration of a time and place in which people expressed their most cherished beliefs through the work of their imagination and hands.
JANE KIRKPATRICK is a writer, speaker, teacher and mental health professional. Her award-winning essays, articles, and humor have appeared in over fifty publications such as Decision, Country and Daily Guideposts. She’s written 14 novels and three non-fiction books including the Wrangler award-winning book A Sweetness to the Soul, a story inspired by a fifty-year old essay a Depression-era schoolboy wrote about his distant ancestors - the Sherars. Her titles have been finalists for the Oregon Book Award, the Spur Award from Western Writers, Reader’s Choice and the WILLA Literary Award of Women Writing the West. Literary Guild, Book of the Month, Doubleday Book Club and Crossings have chosen her books as main features or alternate selections. Her novel A Tendering in the Storm was named a Christy Finalist and won the WILLA Literary Award for Best Original Softcover Fiction for 2008.
Jane grew up near Mondovi, Wisconsin, a little town not far from the Mississippi River. Her older sister Judy and younger brother Craig helped on the family dairy farm. Dozens of cousins lived within 50 miles providing the privilege of extended family memories. Most of the “Rutschow” clan remained in the Wisconsin-Minnesota area. Jane moved to Oregon in 1974 after completing her master’s degree in social work. She worked in the disabilities field, became the director of the mental health program in Deschutes County and eventually “retired” from there to homestead and begin a new adventure in writing, working on the reservation, growing watermelons, and attempting to grow grapes, alfalfa and cattle. In 2007, they sold the cows, again; and now raise alfalfa they sell to neighboring ranches.
The Kirkpatrick’s new life has included “clearing sagebrush and wrestling wind and rattlesnakes” while “homesteading” land on the John Day River in a remote part of Oregon known locally as Starvation Point. She and her husband Jerry still live there today. “It’s our ‘rural 7-Eleven’ since our home sits seven miles from the mailbox and eleven miles from the pavement” notes the author. Additionally, she worked for seventeen years as a mental health and educational consultant on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in Central Oregon with both Native American and non-Indian communities a position she left in 2002. Jane has two step-children. Kathleen lives in Florida with her family and youngest granddaughter, Madison. Matt lives in Wasco and works on the ranch full time when not looking after his family including granddaughter, Mariah.
A lively and humorous speaker, Kirkpatrick is a frequent keynote presenter for conferences, women’s retreats, and workshops. In addition to her historical fiction which dramatizes pioneer life, Homestead relates, with love and laughter, her own family’s modern-day struggle to catch a dream in the Oregon Territory.
Jane believes that our lives are the stories that others read first and she encourages groups to discover the power of their own stories to divinely heal and transform. Visit her blog for more information about her current projects and the joys of living on Starvation Lane.
Teresa Medeiros is one of the romance authors I read fairly consistently. The libraries I have access to don’t carry many of her books, however, so I haven’t read everything. I picked up Some Like It Wild on a whim, having read and loved a few of Medeiros’ previous works, but I have to say, I was a bit disappointed.
When I read romance novels (and I do, frequently) I try to stay away from the ones that still use the tackier clichés. I tend to stick with authors I already know I like, branching out when they recommend another novelist on a website or in an acknowledgement or something*. Medeiros usually falls under this heading, but Some Like It Wild was lacking. Usually, she writes plots that are different enough from the basic “beautiful poor girl meets big, strong, rich alpha male and adventures ensue” to hold my interest, and her writing style is fresh enough that you don’t feel like you’re reading a standard, cookie-cutter romance. While her writing in this one is still above-par, the plot was rather ho-hum.
It was almost too easy for the protagonists to fall in love…and that’s saying something, coming from me. My chief complaint with the majority of romance novels is that the circumstances most authors use to keep their lovers apart are so ridiculously contrived that I have no patience to wade through them.
Anyway. Some Like It Wild tells the tale of Pamela Darby, the daughter of a famous actress who has fallen on hard times, and Connor Kincaid, the Scottish highwayman she chooses to assist her in a little inheritance fraud. I liked the characters quite a big…Pamela is smart and realistic without being annoyingly practical like a few of Amanda Quick’s heroines, and Connor is manly and hot without being annoyingly possessive, gruff, or arrogant like many writers’ male leads. It was the pacing of the novel that bothered me more than the actual plot points themselves. The beginning, when Connor holds up Pamela’s and her sister’s coach in the Scottish wilderness, is fine, but the “teaching Connor to act like a gentleman” bit in the middle felt way too short, and the climactic ending seemed drawn out of thin air.
So to sum up, I recommend Teresa Medeiros’ books, but this is one that you might want to borrow before you buy.
Some Like It Wild by Teresa Medeiros
Plot: **
Characters: ***
Vividness: **
Readability: ***
*If anyone’s keeping score, here are a few other romance novelists I recommend: Julia Quinn, Celeste Bradley, Victoria Alexander, Lisa Kleypas, Linda Howard, Karen Robards, Jayne Ann Krentz/Amanda Quick, Lori Foster, Katie McAlister and JR Ward.
After the early death of her adventurous (and eccentric) Aunt Peg, Ginny embarks on a trans-Atlantic romp that brings her from London to Greece, Rome, Copenhagen (and back again) by way of instructions in thirteen envelopes written by Peg to recreate her own travels through Europe. Worried that her beloved niece has been too quiet and shy for far too long, Peg develops the envelope adventure as a way to bring Ginny to a totally new place — and give her the ride of her life — after she is no longer there to guide her into adulthood.
I really enjoyed Maureen Johnson’s 13 Little Blue Envelopes, though I felt as though there was a disconnect between Ginny and everyone around her. Because the book was told in third person and we weren’t privy to Ginny’s private thoughts, the book seemed to amble along and keep us totally separate from our main character. She seemed numb — someone emotionally stunted. And after she meets boisterous and talented actor Keith in London, we only find out she’s somehow interested in him through a letter she writes to her best friend . . . a person we never actually meet. It was just a whole lot of telling and not enough showing for my taste. At the end of the novel, I still felt like I didn’t really knew Ginny at all.
But that being said, I can’t say I didn’t like this book . . . I really did. I loved the glimpses of European cities, especially the ones I’ve visited. Y’all know me well enough to be sure my little heart was palpitating at Ginny’s adventures in England and the friendship she strikes up with Richard, a man from Peg’s past. Aunt Peg’s letters were really interesting, and I found myself reading compulsively to see where they would guide her next. The characters she met along the way were fun.
This was definitely an easy read — I finished it fast. Perfect for a car or plane ride. I would have liked a little more resolution at the end of the novel — what happened with the love interest? that was just it? and what’s going to happen to Ginny now? — but my fun reading about the international locations saved it for me.
3.75 out of 5!
ISBN: 159514191X ♥ Purchase from Amazon ♥ Author Website
The Vowel Family: A Tale of Lost Letters by Sally M. Walker (2008) is a funny picture book that highlights the importance of vowels in words. I’ve included a few excerpts below to highlight the fun.
What words can you make when you add vowels to the letters below?
wndr pnch tm bk frm lghtr mrvls rmbl fr
Whn Pm Smth mrrd Sm Vwl, sh sd, “Lf s wndrful!”
“xcpt whn w tlk,” Sm sd. “Tlkng s vr hrd.”
Ftr Alan and Ellen, the twns, were brn, ther parents gggld wth glee. Alan and Ellen’s clear speech made sense.
Lfe was better. Bt t wasn’t perfect.
Tried adopting pets, but it wasn’t until the birth of Iris and Otto joined the family that things made sense.
Thank goodness Ursula chose just that moment to be born!”
But, Otto gets lost and Aunt Cyndy, the police officer needs to help them find the missing boy. They find him in the library attending story hour.
It’s funny/interesting that you can read and understand the story, even without the vowels. I wonder if that is due to years of interpretting students’ misspellings, or if everyone can read it easily.
I think students of all ages would love this book for different reasons. Check it out.
Dear Reader,
The first sentence of the prologue for THE OTHER SIDE OF PARADISE, “The front of the car was not designed for having sex,” will snag you, and you won’t be able to shake free of it until you read the book’s last word, “paradise.” You’ll experience amusement, fear, suspense, horror, revulsion, relief, and satisfaction.
Starting with Staceyann Chin’s birth in Lottery, Jamaica, and continuing through her early college years, this memoir reads as smoothly as a novel, its dialogue and characters moving the story forward. Its chapter headings, based on Bible verses or Bible stories, cleverly echo Christianity’s grip on every aspect of Chin’s upbringing.
Written in a Jamaican dialect, the dialogue flip-flops sentence structure and mixes in strange words. This can be difficult to follow at first. But with a little patience, you will find this dialect endearing, and possibly what you’ll carry with you after you close the book.
Women will enjoy this book. So will men who love memoirs.
WOMEN IN ISLAM: Modesty and Dress Codes (Part 8, April 23, 2009)
Note: The political applications and practises by the various Moslem sects do not necessarily correspond to the intention of the original Prophet Muhammad’s message.
Modesty, in the broadest sense, means humility, restraint in manner and conduct, avoiding excess and presenting an unpretentious appearance. In sourat al Nur (light) it is read: “And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments..”
Abdullah ibn Mass’ud reported, “I asked the Messenger of Allah , ‘What is the greatest sin?’ He replied, ‘To set up rivals with Allah by worshipping others although He alone has created you’. I asked, ‘What next?’ He said, ‘To kill your child lest it should share your food’. I asked, ‘What next?’ He said, ‘To commit adultery with the wife of your neighbour’ (zina)” The Koran warns in sourat al Israa “Nor come nigh to adultery: for it is a shameful (deed) and an evil, opening the road (to other evils)”.
The first step on the road to zina is sight. It is only after a person has had a glance that his desire are inflamed. The believing men and women are restricted from gazing at one another, as this is the gateway to greater sin. The Prophet said: “the zina of the legs is walking towards an unlawful act, the zina of the hands is touching and patting, and the zina of the eyes is casting passionate “lances at those who are forbidden to you”
It is the second glance which is punishable. The Prophet advised Ali “O Ali, do not allow your first glance to be followed by a second, because the first glance is permitted for you but the second is not”. And “Let no male stranger sit in privacy with a female stranger, for the third among them is Satan”‘. And “Do not go to the houses of women whose husbands are absent”.
There are exceptions to this prohibition on looking at members of the opposite sex. In the case of medical examinations or treatment, deciding on a marriage partner, recording evidence or carrying out criminal investigations, the rulings are relaxed somewhat, but proper conduct and modesty must still be adhered to.
Practically, the free mixing of men and women from the time they become sexually aware to the time they are no longer sexually active is prohibited. Muslims are required to dress modestly and conceal their private parts (awrah). In the case of men awrah extends from the navel to the knee; in the case of women awrah includes the whole body except the face, hands and (according to some Hanafi scholars) feet. Muslims should wear clothes that are loose fitting, thick (non-transparent) and simple (not ostentatious or gaudy).
In sourat al Nur it is read: “And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof; that they should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands’ fathers, their sons, their husbands’ sons, their brothers or their brothers’ sons, or their sisters’ sons, or their women, or the slaves whom their right hands possess, or male servants free of physical needs, or small children who have no sense of the shame of sex; and that they should not strike their feet in order to draw attention to their hidden ornaments. And O Believers! Turn all together towards Allah, that you may attain Bliss.” In sourat al Ahzab (sects) it is said: “O Prophet! Tell your wives and daughters, and the believing women, that they should cast their outer garments over their persons (when abroad): that is most convenient, that they should be known (as such) and not molested. And Allah is Oft Forgiving, Most Merciful.
Umm Salamah reported that she and Maymunah (who were both wives of the Prophet ) were with the Prophet when the blind son of Umm Maktum came to speak with him. The Prophet told his wives to observe hijab in front of the visitor Umm Salamah said, “O Messenger of Allah, he is a blind man and will not see us”. The Prophet said, “He may be blind but you are not, and do you not see him”? The Prophet issued a warning: “Those women who appear naked even though they are wearing clothes, who allure and are allured by others, and who walk in a provocative manner, will never enter Paradise, or even smell its fragrance”.
Note 1: The Moslem clerics would like you to understand that the main aim of hijab is to allow Muslim women to enjoy the ability to express their personality and their intellect independently of men’s whims and desires. It would be interesting to get the opinion of the concerned women on that concept.
Note 2: Since antiquity, noble women wore the veil to be distinguished from the working women; the veil was a symbol of ranking because the sun did not alter the freshness of the face since whitness of the skin was very praised. In Europe, women used to have a veil attached to their hats and they would lower the veil when outside their homes. In Mecca, the wives and girls of the rich traders wore the veil when out of their homes. In Yathreb or Medina women were practically running a martriarchal system and thus, were mostly woking women. Whe the Prophet Muhamad had to flee to Medina his folowers from Mecca were subjected to a cultural shock. The Prophet had to be biased toward his followers because they were the backbone of his power. Gradually but steadily the tradition and customs in Medina were altered. The Prophet took advantage of golden opportunities. After the inevitable rumors and flapps over his many wives behaviors the Prophet edicted that his wives would wear veil when on the streets and be accompanied by relatives. The society followed the fashion of the famous.
Note 3: The “Chador” and the dress codes of totally covering the body in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, and where extra-conservative Moslem sects are predominant are not dictated by the Koran. They are simply patriarchal political acts meant to humiliate women and relegate them to non-individual class.
WOMEN IN ISLAM: Motherhood (Part 6, April 23, 2009)
Note: The political applications and practises by the various Moslem sects do not necessarily correspond to the intention of the original Prophet Muhammad’s message.
The Prophet indicated that a woman’s status is further enhanced when she becomes a mother. A man once asked him, “Who deserves the best care from me?” He replied, “Your mother”. The man asked, “Then who?” He replied, “Your mother”. The man asked, “Then who?” He replied, “Your mother”. The man asked, “Then who?” He replied, “Then your father”.
The Koran reads: ‘”Believer must not hate a believing woman; if he dislikes one of her characteristics, he should be pleased with another. When a woman breast feeds, for every gulp of milk she will receive a reward as if she had granted life to being, and when she weans her child, the angels pat her on the hack saying, ‘Congratulations! All your past sins have been forgiven, now start all over again”: “O women! Remember that the pious among you will enter Jannah before the pious men” “During pregnancy until the time of childbirth, and until the end of the suckling period, a woman earns reward similar to that of the person who is guarding the borders of Islam”
The Koran orders are to be kind and just to women, as daughters, sisters, wives and mothers. Muslim who seek to make their womenfolk happy may expect to earn the pleasure of Allah, and pleasing Allah is the key to Paradise. The sourat Luqman says: “And We have enjoined on man (to be good) to his parents: in travail upon travail did his mother bear him, and in years twain was his weaning: (hear the command), ‘Show gratitude to Me and to your parents: to Me is (your final) Goal.
Although Islam tells us to respect both parents, the mother is given precedence. For months she bears the burden in her womb, sufferings the trials of pregnancy. After the exertion of labour, she suckles the baby for up to two years. She sacrifices her own comforts for the sake of her child. So a man has to recognise, first, the rights that Allah has over him, and then the rights of his parents, especially the mother; he must worship Allah, and occupy himself in obeying and serving his parents to the best of his ability.
Miqdam reported that the Prophet said: “O people, listen: Allah the Most High commands you to treat your mothers well. Allah the Most High commands you to be good to your mothers, and thereafter to your fathers”. Anas reported that the Prophet said: “Paradise lies at the feet of mothers”. What is meant by this is that a believer may attain the pleasure of Allah, and hence Paradise, by pleasing his mother and attending to her needs. Even if one’s mother is not a Muslim, one is obliged to treat her well and take care of her, so long as this does not entail any disobedience to Allah.
Modern Batch of Banned Manuscripts (April 20, 2009)
Censuring of books was not the sole domain of the Vatican or other religious sacerdotal castes; the State governments, special associations “for preserving morals”, and other politically oriented organizations shared in restricting freedom of opinions. Private court cases are preponderant at this age for extorting royalty fees or any other excuses such as safeguarding privacy.
Gustave Flaubert published “Madame Bovary” in 1856 and the novel was deemed the worst scandal in that half of century. The French government realized that the novel represented the end of romanticism and the advent of reality of life in the provinces. Emma was no longer satisfied with her quaint life and wanted to experiment with her passions. The French State prosecutor banned “Madame Bovary”, “Les Fleurs du Mal” by Baudelaire, and “Mysteres du People” by Eugene Sue. In 2007, a poll survey of the Anglo-Americans showed that “Madame Bovary” came second after “Anna Karenina” by Tolstoy.
In 1863, the theologian Ernest Renan published “Life of Jesus”; it reconstructed the life of Jesus devoid of divine nature. It was an instant scandal and the manuscript was re-published 24 times before the end of 1864. Renan was excommunicated after his death!
James Joyce published in 1918 “Ulysses”; it was an epic poem that recounts the peregrination of an Irish man, Leopold Bloom, in Dublin between 8 a.m. and 3 a.m. One episode “Nausicaa” brought hell fire of censure from every corner. Leopold courted a girl swimming nude during fire work and their orgasm coincided with the explosion of the “bouquet” of the fire work. The book “Ulysses” was persecuted by successive court orders for over ten years.
“Lady Chatterley’s Lover” by David H. Lawrence was published in 1928. It disturbed the social order of class structure because an aristocratic lady deigned to become in love of her employee. Even thirty-two years later, Britain would prosecute an Italian version.
“Tropics of Cancer” by Henry Miller was published in 1934 in Paris. It is about the personal sexual adventures of the author in minute details. For over 30 years no US publishers would dare touch this manuscript for “obscenity”. Miller’s “Sexus” was even banned in France between the years 1950 to 1964.
Louis-Ferdinand Celine published “Bagatelles pour un massacre”in 1937. It was labeled hostile to Jews. It enjoyed many editions during Nazi occupation of France but was never re-edited after 1945 on the ground that his widowed, Lucette Destouches, the sole owner of rights, wanted to respect the author’s wishes! Celine had published the famous “Voyage au bout de la nuit”.
Nikos Kazantzakis published in Athens “The Last Temptation of Christ” in 1954. It relates a dream that Christ had while crucified of how it would have been his life among his wife and children. Christ would wake up from the dream and then He shouted “Everything is accomplished”. It was 34 years later when projected as a movie by Martin Scorsese that all hell broke loose; movie theaters were attacked and burned; 14 of movie watchers were injured.
Christian Bourgois was declined by 13 editors before his first novel “L’Epi Monstre” is published in 1961; Christian has 21 years of age and that wrote the manuscript in 10 days. Christian was a nurse with the French army during the Algerian Revolution. The story is about a communist widower who had incestuous relations with his two girls; one commits suicide and the other is killed by her father. The ban will be lifted in 2002. Bougois published “Jeanne la Pudeur” and was also banned
Vassili Grossman (1905-1964) wrote “Life and Destiny”; he was a reporter for the Bolshevik daily “The Red Star” during the Second World War and witnessed the horrors of the war and detention centers. Vassili took precautions to leaving two microfilms of his manuscript with Andrei Sakharov and Vladimir Dimitrijevic. The KGB had confiscated the manuscript, the carbon copy, and the typewriter ribbons. “Life and Destiny” was published in 1980; it is in the genre of “War and Peace” of 800 pages that uncovers the resemblance of totalitarianism, the rejection of to all kinds of submissions, and the communication with “little people”. It demonstrates the tyranny of the “Good” and how it can become an epidemic worst than “Evil”
“The Archipelago of Gulag” by Alexander Soljenitsyne was published in 1973 in Paris; it is a vast essay of literary investigation into concentration camps and testimonies of 227 detainees (zeks). Soljenitsyne was expulsed from the Soviet Union and he wrote the next two volumes in the USA; he received the Nobel Prize of Literature in 1970 and then was received with full honor in Russia in 1994. The manuscript was published in Russia in 1989.
During Nazi Germany occupation of France 714,000 books were burned in Paris. The list of banned manuscripts started with 1060 and it kept climbing as Germany invaded Russia and then the US entered war.
Vladimir Nabokov published “Lolita” in 1955 in Paris for fear of being banned in the USA. The manuscript had to wait until 1958 to be allowed to circulate in libraries. The story did not contain any pornographic descriptions and was recounted in Oxfordian exactitude about the love of a professor to his adoptive child after murdering her mother.
Before the latest wave of outcries for child molesting Tony Duvert published “Paysage de Fantaisie” in 1973 about his experience and inclinations for young boys and received the Medicis Prize for it. Olivier Petre-Grenouilleau published “Traites Negrieres” where he claims that the Moslem’s Slave trades in Africa far outnumbered the European trade; he did the unpardonable commentary when he discriminated the suffering of the Jews during Nazi Germany and the suffering of the slaves. In 2008, Sylvain Gouguenheim published “Aristote au mont Saint-Michel” where his researched led him to clarify that Aristotle’s philosophy was accepted in Europe as the Arab translated it; 56 philosophers and historians signed a petition proclaiming that the manuscript is not scientific.
Looking back on life with a father who kept secrets from his English family
Try to Tell the Story: A Memoir. By David Thomson. Knopf, 224 pp., $23.95.
By Janice Harayda
Film critic David Thomson grew up in a London infested with unexploded bombs, real and symbolic. The real ones landed intact during the Blitz or later in World War II. The symbolic ones began to fall when Thomson’s father, on learning that his wife was pregnant, left home and from then on returned to the family’s South London home only on weekends to see his son. This arrangement was less bizarre than some described by authors in their memoirs. What made it unusual was that when Kenneth Thomson returned for his weekly visits, he took young son on sports and other outings without ever acknowledging that he had been away.
In this memoir of his first 18 years, David Thomson sorts out the effects of the buried truth with a tact and forbearance. Try to Tell the Story has banal descriptions of cricket matches: “The day we were there we saw Hutton score a century backed by Graveney against Lindwall and Miller, but by the end of the match, after [Australian] centuries from Hassett and Miller, Willie Watson and Trevor Bailey had to make a heroic stand against England against defeat.” But the book shows that Thomson developed early a fine critical sensibility both for films such as Laurence Olivier’s Henry V and for moviegoing in general. When Thomson wondered how movies got onto theater screens, his father pointed to light from a projection booth. “In those days that beam of light was thick with writhing smoke,” he writes, “since everyone at the movies smoked.”
Best line: “The first day I arrived in America there had been a flood in Maine, a summer flood. It was on the evening news and the Boston reporter, all quickfire and soft soap, had lined up an elderly Maine fellow to see if he had ever seen anything like this before. ‘Well, Mr. Parsons,’ he said. ‘I understand you’ve lived all your life in Maine.’ And the old-time said, ‘Not yet.’”
Worst line: “… we had food rationing for years – into the 1950s, I remember.” Relying on memory for that date is lazy writing. Food rationing ended in England in 1954 and was such a significant event that people burned their ration books in Trafalgar Square. Thomson could have found the date in a few minutes of online searching.
If you like this book, you may also like: Paula Fox’s memoir, The Coldest Winter: A Stringer in Liberated Europe.
Caveat lector: This review was based on an advance reader’s copy of Try to Tell the Story. Some material in the finished book may differ.
About the author: Thomson lives in San Francisco. He also wrote Nicole Kidman and “Have You Seen ….?”: A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films.
Read an excerpt from Try to Tell the Story.
© 2009 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.
www.janiceharayda.com and www.twitter.com
WOMEN IN ISLAM: Education (Part 3, April 18, 2009)
Note: The political applications and practises by the various Moslem sects do not necessarily correspond to the intention of the message as originaly stated by the Prophet message.
Islam has given rights to women in all aspects of life. The spiritual equality of the sexes in Islam extends to equal value quality education for both sexes. The Prophet said: “Seeking knowledge is a duty for every Muslim male and female. Seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave”. In the sourat Fatir it is read: “Those truly fear Allah, among His Servants, who have knowledge.” Women had to be educated in order to shoulder their rights guaranteed by the message from consent to mariage, to setting the mariage contracts of conditions in writing, to equal inheritance, to managing her household, and to raising her offspring.
In sourat Al Nisaa (Women) it is said “Do not covet those things in which Allah has bestowed His gifts more freely on some of you than on others: to men is allotted what they earn and to women what they earn: but ask Allah of His bounty. For Allah has full knowledge of all things.” Islam bestowed upon women a legal economic entity. A woman could now own, manage, inherit, distribute and sell her own property as she wished and in her own right. Her assets remained hers, and marriage or divorce did not alter her rights. Islam brought these rights to women fourteen hundred years ago, long before equal rights were thought of or campaigned for in other lands.
Women’s emergence into the economic arena in the West took hold during the First World War to fill production gaps vacated by the conscripted men for the war effort. However, it has taken much heartache and a great deal of struggle and striving to bring women anywhere near a position of equal economic status. Even today, the Western woman is economically bound to her husband, who can demand a share from her earnings for ongoing domestic expenses and, in the case of divorce, can claim a share of her savings. In general, the Muslim wife is entitled to be supported by her husband, no matter how rich she may be in her own right; whilst she is a child, she is entitled to be supported by her father and in old age she is entitled to be supported by her children. The Muslim woman is relieved of the burden of having to earn a living, and she is allowed to dispose of her earnings in whatever manner she chooses.
In the sourat al Nisaa it is read “From what is left by parents and those nearest related there is a share for men and a share for women, whether the property be small or large -a determinate share.” Islam offers a “ready-made will” that no written will or local tradition can bypass for not allotting women at least half what the males inherit.
The reason for men being given a portion twice as much as that given to women if no writen testiminy is left is that men are responsible for taking care of their womenfolk: A man may be required to spend on his mother, sisters or other female relatives. A woman is entitled to dispose of her share of the inheritance as she wishes, and is under no obligation to support anyone, even herself. When these facts are borne in mind, the just and equitable position of Islam becomes reasonable.
The Empress Laseen, who has recently taken the throne of the Malazan Empire, continues the expansion started by her predecessor, through the continent of Genabackis. The rich city of Darujhistan is the objective, but Pale and its mages are on the way of the Malazan 2nd Army. This army counts with the experience of their High Fist (army General) Dujek One-Arm, the “sapper” brigade of the Bridgeburners, and a cadre of High Mages, but the Tiste Andii lord Anomander Rake does not intend to let Pale get captured easily…
Thus starts “Gardens of the Moon”, first book of the “Malazan Book of the Fallen” series, pre-reviewed here.
Despite the apparently standard premiss of the book, as the reader goes through its early stages, many questions arise. What really happened to the previous emperor? Who are Amannas and Cotillion, who seem to be ready to thwart Laseen’s plans? Why are the Gods so interested in Ganoes Paran, new leader of the Bridgeburners? What really happened to the mage cadre during the fight in Pale? What is the secret plan of the Adjunct of the Empress?
The book quickly takes a fast pace, and all these threads become caught in each other. It becomes hard to put the book down, as surely something interesting is bound to happen in the next pages!
Then there’s a fantastic finale, where several of the book’s protagonists meet and face each other. This ploy, often used by Erikson throughout the saga, is called a Convergence, which basically means that powerful characters get attracted to each other and to powerful events, like moths to a flame.
Overall, this book is excellent, and starts my favorite saga since “The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever”. If I had to point any negative sides of it, I’d say some of the interesting threads are left loose until later books, and also that some parts of the story are better understood after reading the follow-ups. Mind, this isn’t necessary a negative, since a few of the happenings of the book are described by the “opposing parties” in later books, revealing very interest other-sides-of-the-coin. For example, one of the most “hateable” characters in this book, will become one of the readers’ favorites after at least other books in the series.
Final score: 8 (first read - 8.5 if re-read after other books of the series)
Best character: The book introduces us to many interesting characters that will have interesting roles throughout the saga, like the mysterious Bridgeburner mage Quick Ben, the consciencious Daru assassin Rallick Nom, or Onos T’oolan the First Sword of the T’lan Imass. But it’s the Lord of Darkness, Anomander Rake, and his highly original sword that becomes central to the magic (pun intended) of this book.
Review:
** spoiler alert **
Well, what can I say…
I read Need because I LOVE Faeries, and with it’s synopsis/review on bn.com I thought it’d be a new love; however…
I really WANTED to like this book more, but just couldn’t.. I can see why it is so well like and it’s not bad, in fact Carrie Jones is wildly creative, and I enjoyed her concept of “pixies” and their vampiric qualities.
But her unique writing style left me wanting more, more build up, more stress, more anything! It was choppy and awkwardly informal. It felt like I was reading a diary, not a novel. (Which may appeal to some).
On a brighter note, though, I did enjoy some of her characters. Zara’s grandmother made me laugh out loud almost every time she appeared, and I enjoy her friends Issie and Devyn as well.
She uses a lot of foreshadowing to later things to be revealed which are not well veiled; however, even realizing what was probably going to happen, Carrie Jones’ writing compels you further along the plot. Yet even then the plot was too easy and at times felt like saying out loud, “Really? that’s it?”
I do not feel like Need was a complete waste of time, and I did enjoy it, but I can say by the end I was ready to move on.
Plot: * * *
Characters: * * * *
Writing: * * *
Overall: * * *
Cover: * * * * *
This was a present from my brother to a new mom - Me. I started this book with a lot of enthusiasm. I wanted to know how another new mom felt. I had my own emotions alright, but was curious to know if other mothers felt the same way I did.
The book starts with pregnancy - how the author realized that she is pregnant, how she went through those nine months and goes on to talk about eventually having a baby and bringing it up. The book covers topics like breastfeeding, weaning, potty training, pacifiers, terrible twos, toddler tantrums and so on.
The author complains about people giving out unwanted advice to new mothers, but she does exactly that. She could just narrate what she went through and leave the audience to decide what they want to do when they are in a similar situation. Just because some methods worked for her and her baby, they may not work for every child in this world. I will ask her to try the same methods with her second baby. She will be surprised to see how (in)effective they prove to be. And just by having a baby, the author doesn’t turn into a know-it-all. The author takes an authoritative tone throughout the book, which I found very irritating.
While it was interesting to read the author’s views, I noticed a pessimistic undercurrent throughout the book. I know motherhood is not a bed of roses. Yes, there are sleepless nights, incessant crying, handling tantrums and losing one’s personal life, but motherhood is also about toothless smiles, cooing, snuggling, cuddling, wet kisses and warm hugs. Where does the author talk about all these? An extended case of PPD, may be?
If you are planning to start a fmaily or already on the way, please stay away from this book. You will feel like you have gotten yourself into a mess! And new moms, if you think you can handle so much pessimism, then only read this book.
Not having a camera this past week has really affected my ability to post anything terribly interesting. I have several things I’d love to share with you all but alas; it would be tasteless and flat without pictures. I mean who wants to read a blog without pictures!? That’s like shopping on E bay without seeing pics of the product. Don’t you just hate that!?
In desperation I thought I would share a sampling of the books I bought on my birthday trip 2 weeks ago. I certainly managed to bring home quite a few titles and yet felt deprived that I painfully passed up on so many more. Perhaps they will still be there on my next trip down to our lovely used bookstore.
1. The first book I’ll mention is The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. Any book with such an interesting title needed to go home with me. I’ve yet to read this book but here’s what Barnes and Noble had to say about it:
“… recounts the case histories of patients lost in the bizarre, apparently inescapable world of neurological disorders…tells the stories of individuals afflicted with fantastic perceptual and intellectual aberrations: patients who have lost their memories and with them the greater part of their pasts; who are no longer able to recognize people and common objects; who are stricken with violent tics and grimaces or who shout involuntary obscenities; whose limbs have become alien; who have been dismissed as retarded yet are gifted with uncanny artistic or mathematical talents.
If inconceivably strange, these brilliant tales remain, in Dr. Sacks’s splendid and sympathetic telling, deeply human. They are studies of life struggling against incredible adversity, and they enable us to enter the world of the neurologically impaired, to imagine with our hearts what it must be to live and feel as they do.”
2. Don’t Eat This Book, Morgan Spurlock. The girl at the bookstore threatened to come home with me if I didn’t buy this book (NOT a good thing!) so I had to add this book to my growing pile. I read Fast Food Nation (well, most of it :S) and this seems to be about the same idea. Some of you may remember Morgan Spurlock as the fella that ate nothing but McDonalds for every meal for 30 days in the documentary “Super Size Me.” This book delves into WHY the fast food industry is so tasty & cheap and oh so very bad for you!
3. The Hundred Year Lie, How to Protect Yourself from the Chemicals That Are Destroying Your Health. I am very excited about reading this book! Randall Fitzgerald “warns how thousands of man-made chemicals in our food, water, medicine, and environment are making humans the most polluted species on the planet…he also presents informed and practical suggestions for what we can do to turn the tide and live healthier lives.”
4. Obviously had to pick up this book by Sally Fallon. Eat Fat Lose Fat. While I don’t intend to go on this as a “diet” It is chock full of information on why we need the good fats in our diet.
5. I actually received Whole Grain Breads as a birthday present. (Thank you Pam!) I have looked through and read quite a bit in this book. It is very detailed and gives you ALL the ins and outs of baking whole wheat bread, the science behind preparing and baking with whole grains. I may be elderly before I can appreciate all the knowledge in this book! But the wonderful pictures I can enjoy now in my youth!
6. What The Bible Says About Healthy Living, Rex Russell, MD. I am excited about this book most of all because so far it is right in line with the way we already believe is the “right” way to eat. There IS a right and a wrong way to eat and shouldn’t we as Christians be concerned with what the Bible has to say about our eating habits? Dr. Russell uses 3 practical principles to help one improve their physical and spiritual health. Those 3 principles are :
· Eat only substances God created for food. Avoid what is not designed for food.
· As much as possible, eat foods as they were created-before they are changed or converted into something humans think might be better
· Avoid food addiction. Don’t let any food or drink become you God.
7. Grandma Putt’s Old Time Vinegar, Garlic, Baking Soda, and 101 more Problem Solvers (2500 Super Solutions for your Home, Health, and Garden)I am also very excited about using the ideas found here. We’ve already put into practice several of his problem solvers. Great book and I would recommend anyone into this type of thing to get this fun book!
And here are a few honerable mentions with self-explaining titles:
8. Uncommon Cures for Everyday Ailments
9. The Practical Encyclopedia of Natural Healing
by Mark Bricklin
Because I have children that have picked up on our love of reading I feared coming home without bringing them something:
10. I guess you could say I collect readers. No not the humans that read, but little story readers that have a bunch of stories inside. I absolutley cannot pass them up! I’ve got old readers that are falling apart and new readers from Bob Jones & Abeka. I also love to get not only readers but textbooks as well from Mennonite/Anabaptist publishers as they teach Bible stories and moralso very well. This little book is called More Busy Times and the first reader Pathway reader I’ve collected.
11. I couldn’t find this book anywhere online. It is apparently one book in the series Little Gateways to Science, Nature Secrets by Mary Chambers. This book is in excellent condition with a copyright of 1923! It is a wonderful little book written superbly! “Every day in this garden there are marvelous happenings through the workings of hidden forces; there are magical transformations and changes; there are on every side unexplained mysteries.” A sampling of the chapters: Scientists and Secrets, The Beauties and Uses of Dust, Germs good, germs bad, and Germs merely Mischievous, Miss Oxygen at work and play…Doesn’t that sound fascinating!?
12. The Mighty Aztecs. I got this book for my son who is convinced that he wants to be a famous explorer one day (when he’s not thinking he would like to move to Lego Land and work for them.)
And last but not least I was happy to get my Dearest a book he’d been looking for for quite awhile, but didn’t want to pay full price.
13. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey. While I collect readers, he collects self-help books J Barnes & Noble had this to say, “Stephen R. Covey’s incredibly successful book is a pathway to wisdom and power. It offers a revolutionary program to breaking the patterns of self-defeating behavior that keep us from achieving our goals and reaching our fullest potential, and describes how to replace them with a principle-focused approach to problem-solving.”
This post linked to:
Things I love Thursday at The Diaper Diaries
3 Moms Thirteen Thursday at Happy to be At Home
A Beautiful Life at the Inspired Room
I picked up this little book at a book sale recently, recognizing the author from The Five People You Meet In Heaven (a book I haven’t read yet but have been meaning to for awhile). It seems that Tuesdays with Morrie is also fairly well known, so it warranted a read, especially since one of our local theaters is staging a production of a play based on it.
The premise is very simple. A beloved Sociology professor is dying from Lou Gehrig’s Disease (ALS), and a former student reunites with him in his final days for a series of lessons about life, love, and dying. What sounds like a very morbid and depressing book is actually one of the more uplifting stories you can read because it embraces life. The constant irony in the book is that only a dying man can teach us about living.
Morrie’s a great mentor for me as a teacher. It sounds like he connected with his students in remarkable ways and taught them important lessons about life. Students continued to seek him out long after graduation for his wisdom and companionship. You can’t say that for many other professors. And teaching was his true vocation, one that he chose to pursue even with his dying breath.
Faith is a complicated issue in this book. Morrie is Jewish by heritage, and he attended synagogue while growing up and was buried by a rabbi. But he claimed to be an agnostic for most of his adult life. In the 10th anniversary edition, Albom includes an afterward which mentions Morrie’s potential conversion back to theism. In his dying days, Morrie, when asked about death, says, “This is too harmonious, grand, and overwhelming a universe to believe that it’s all an accident” (196).
Most of Morrie’s lessons, which always take place on Tuesday, are very much in line with Judeo-Christian values. But there are times he pulls from Buddhist thought as well. Albom explains that “Morrie borrowed freely from all religions,” but thankfully, his advice ends up being rooted in his childhood faith foundation.
Morrie freely criticizes our culture for its excessive focus on materialism, its repetition of “more is good,” ad nauseum. He rightly calls this idolatry: “These were people so hungry for love that they were accepting substitutes.”
He discusses the importance of marriage and commitment to it. He says that the most important value in marriage is “your belief in the importance of your marriage.”
Morrie is right about a lot of things, but he’s missing the boat on the most important lesson of them all. He doesn’t mention Jesus, the ultimate answer to all the questions. His advice is filled with a lot of truth that falls in line with biblical practices, but without Jesus at the heart of it, it’s empty and self-seeking.
Morrie is a wise teacher. He offers a lot of insight learned from life. But Jesus is the best Rabbi, who not only teaches you, but he transforms you into someone better, someone more like him. He’s the one that satisfies our longings for false idols, giving us his true love that we seek. And in our marriages, our greatest value is to love and serve him, and everything else will follow.
Although I love to read books (particularly murder mystery stories!) I’ve never really considered mathematics to be a subject which lends itself to being read about and personally I’ve always found maths to be a subject which is best understood through practical experience, by actually solving equations and playing around with problems until you understand them.
However there are some brilliant books available, covering some fascinating areas of mathematics, including the role of symmetry in our understanding of the universe (a branch of maths known as Group Theory) and the history of Riemann’s hypothesis (one of the most famous and important unsolved problems in maths). In this blog I want to tell you about my two favourite maths books.
The first is ‘Mathematics: The New Golden Age’ by Keith Devlin which I first read as an A-Level student preparing to go to university and even though that was 12 years ago I still find this book as interesting and informative as when I first read it. What makes this book so good is that although it covers many advanced and cutting-edge topics it is still incredibly easy to read and as well-written as any fictional story.
As a teacher I now find Devlin’s book to be an excellent source of information and ideas for my students and it’s usually the first book I turn to when my students ask me a question I can’t fully answer! This book was my first introduction to many interesting and important areas of mathematics, such as Riemann’s hypothesis, the use of prime numbers in cryptography and set theory, mathematical logic and the axioms of mathematics – many topics I later went on to study at university. As such I would definitely recommend this book to anyone with an interest in mathematics, irrespective of their age or background in maths.
My second choice is a very different type of book – ‘The Mind of God: Science and the Search for Ultimate Meaning’ by Paul Davies. This is a more advanced and challenging book than Devlin’s and is less specifically about mathematics, although maths plays a central role in the key focus of this book, which is to discuss the nature of reality and our universe and how our search for a greater understanding of the way the universe works reveals key ideas about the logical and philosophical nature of our existence.
This was the first book I read which mentioned the possibility of mathematics being more than just a tool for understanding the world around us. Instead the author discusses the idea that mathematics may be a fundamental truth of our universe, in the same way that we accept the laws of physics as being fundamentally real. Although this view is by no means fully accepted – for instance many of the friends I studied my PhD with firmly disagree with this view – I still find it fascinating that mathematics may be at the heart of our very existence and that we may all have been born with maths imprinted on our conscious.
Davies’ book is as wide-ranging as Devlin’s but in a very different way, ranging across topics such as mathematics, philosophy, computing, physics and religion. Although this book is more challenging than Devlin’s it is well worth the effort and I would definitely recommend this book to anyone with an interest in maths who has also ever wondered why the universe exists and what life truly means.
There are many books available which do a superb job communicating the wonder and beauty of mathematics in a way which is easy to understand and without compromising on the key mathematical ideas involved. However for me these two books stand out as the best popular books I have ever read about maths. Moreover the fact that I still enjoy reading them, and that each time I do I still find new areas of thought and points of interest, shows just how good these books are and makes me want to recommend them above any other maths book I’ve read.
Dr McDarby is Maths Lecturer at Bellerbys College London
Mathematics: The New Golden Age at Amazon.co.uk
The Mind of God at Amazon.oc.uk
India in Slow Motion
It is not so often that one comes across a book that reinforces the potential of presenting facts and situations to capture the interest of a reader in a way that the book becomes both educative and a page turner. INDIA IN SLOW MOTION by Mark Tully does just that. With his immaculately diverse set of ten typically Indian real life stories, he has successfully brought about the fundamental flaws in the system that is governing this country. I first interacted with Mark Tully at IIT Bombay during their fest and was impressed by his knowledge and observations. And after reading India in Slow Motion, my respect and admiration for him has grown ten fold.
Most of the book is not as much about exposing the familiar problems plaguing India, as it is about revealing the intricacies, significance and true extent of the same. Topics such as the Ayodhya issue, corruption, droughts, farmer suicides, Kashmir, the IT revolution are not unfamiliar. But the treatment that Tully has meted out to these topics inevitably makes us rethink our own estimation of the nature and significance of the problem. Be it the thrilling, detailed first hand account of the entire Tehelka sting operation which got the Defence Minister to resign, the true tale of Kashmir and why it is in its present state or a little known village in Gujarat that has declared independence from the rest of the country, Tully describes an India which exhibits a common foundation running through all of them-the NETA-BABU Raj-which he finds to be the single most important factor why India is still a country in Slow Motion.
The book starts off by describing a small but largely representative incident in a remote village in Madhya Pradesh, where a Cyber Cafe built by an NGO is being brought down on the orders issued by a bureaucrat of the region for not possessing a particular “Internet Service Provider License -II”. This incident is small because it never made to the papers and representative because it shows how the Indian bureaucracy is working to defeat it’s own purpose. Other stories in the book deal with many cultural and religious aspects including a first hand account of the Babri Masjid demolition and the subsequent efforts to build a Ram Temple in the same site along with detailed descriptions about the rise and present state of Christianity in Goa and also an informative chapter on Sufism and the stance taken by different Muslim leaders in India.
But the crux of the book lies in the revelation of a large number of small facts that goes a long way in choosing the correct frame of reference to look and judge this country’s state of affairs. A large many assumptions developed over years of exposure to the Indian media is convincingly set right by simply reflecting on these hard facts plaguing the country and of which, the majority of us are blissfully unaware. Sample this: In a chapter dealing solely with the farmer suicides in Karnataka, Tully describes the procedure for a farmer to obtain a low interest loan from a Nationalized Bank as per a Govt scheme. In the words of the Bank Manager:
“Before any farmer can ask for a loan, he has to produce, one-land records, two- records of rights, three-no dues from the government, four-records of all land revenue paid, five-land valuation certificates, six-no dues from agricultural societies, seven-permission from court if applicant is a minor and eighth(and here is the best part!)- NO DUES CERTIFICATES FROM ALL THE OTHER 9 BANKS IN THE AREA!!!!!!”
And to procure the no dues certificate from all the other banks, a farmer has to approach each and every bank individually and get a certificate from each of them!
Another equally glaring fact concerns the structure and the working of the Police force in India. Tully quotes directly from a report submitted by a Senior retired Police Officer who says:
“..the 1861 Act passed by the British Raj still governs the organization, structure, philosophyand working of our police forces at the end of the twentieth century, never mind the phenomenal changes in our social, political, scientific, economic, and cultural spheres over the decades. The pattern adopted by the 1861 Act was based on the Irish Constabulary because Ireland was a colony at that time.”
Another Senior Police Officer says:
“..for the bureaucracy, control over the police has become an intoxicant they are addicted to and are just not willing to give up. And so the act of 1861 continues to be on the statute book even after nearly one hunderd and forty years-a millstone round the police neck”
Here is another concerning the corruption in the Indian Military:
“An Arms dealer has to bribe a Major General around Rs. 10 lakhs just so the dealer can obtain the list of equipment that the Indian Army is looking to test and purchase!”
Simple but revealing facts like these are in abundance in the book largely due to Tully’s first hand investigation into every topic he has written about. One of the best chapters in the book, I found, was the one on corruption which included a detailed first hand account of the entire TEHELKA sting operation by the very man who performed the sting with the hidden camera! The thrilling encounters with the top politicians and military leaders coupled with the glaring and inexcusable stupidity on part of the Generals for believing everything makes the chapter both humorous and thought provoking. The chapter on the Farmer suicides in Karnataka during the drought on the turn of the millenium is also very well documented with facts revealing such a lack of basic common sense among the officials, that one feels there is no hope for the Indian farmer. Like a farmer says,”A farmer in India is born in debt, lives in debt, dies in debt and is reborn in debt!” Another truly memorable quote that perfectly epitomizes the life of a farmer comes from a farmer who is asked why he is not investing in long term gains and stability by sending his children to school. He says: “Sir, we farmers are not concerned about what happens 10-15 years from now. All we care about is being able to live through today…everyday”
The stories in India in Slow Motion do little to portray India the way political campaigns (like India Shining) do. But at the same time, the stories do not aim to bring out the harsh realities prevailing in the country such as poverty. What it does aim, however, is to give first hand information on issues that every Indian is familiar with. Though a few stories form an exception to the familiarity aspect, the underlying objective of giving the readers first hand information on the ground reality successfully weaves through these stories as well. Throughout the book, Tully never makes the slightest effort to force his opinion on the reader. In fact, his completely objective portrayal of ground reality obviates the need for the reader to frame an opinion about India’s prospects. And so, instead, his astute observations compel the reader to develop both the positive and negative outlooks about India.
Tully’s inferences always tend to tell a tale of a car trying to move forward with its brakes on. In spite of describing stories that show the blatant inefficiency and flaws in the governance system, Tully still displays an optimism that stems from recent and not so recent history when India did make the effort to liberate the economy, thereby easing a little off the brakes on its path to development. But the question of how long or what it takes for these changes to come about, though raised, is left deliberately unanswered. This book is a must read before anyone decides to have a say about any aspect of the present state of affairs in India.
By Steve Early
“It’s a well-established fact,” reports The New York Times Book Review, “that Americans are reading fewer books than they used to.” (1) According to the National Endowment for the Arts, more than 50% of those surveyed haven’t cracked a book in the previous year. In labor circles, the percentage of recent readers may be even smaller. Eric Lee, the UK-based founder of Labour Start, recalls an encounter he had, a few years ago, at a union conference in Chicago. There, a “labor intellectual” was “bemoaning the fact that even the most intelligent and best-informed union leaders he knew simply did not read the books that they should be reading, if they read any books at all.”
“Even though there are millions of union members,” Lee notes, “the books aimed at unionists are never listed” on best-seller lists. “If you’re a gardener or a cook or a movie-goer, the books targeted at you may sell in the tens of thousands. History books are sometimes big best sellers-but not books about labor history.”
Lee’s own on-line promotion of labor books notwithstanding , he now offers the following advice to authors seeking large audiences:
“[D]on’t write books about and for trade unionists. Our movement does many things well, but one thing we do not do well is buy and read books that are written for us.”
(2)
As evidenced by a forthcoming Monthly Review collection of labor-related “literary journalism” (available in May, 2009), I’ve long been an “optimist of the will,” rather than a “pessimist of the intellect,” on the subject of reading, writing, and union-building. (3) I agree with Lee that unions need to do a much better job connecting labor writers to readers. Yet, in my experience, the work of labor educators in this area has actually become easier in recent years. That’s because management’s unrelenting assault on the pay, benefits, and job conditions of millions of workers has had the salutary effect of raising political consciousness. Within organized labor–an institution not known in the past for the richness of its intellectual life-the marketplace for new ideas has grown even as union density has shrunk.
Labor activists today are often desperate for any information, insight, or inspiration that can aid the difficult task of re-building unions. While many labor education programs continue to focus on developing basic union skills, more shop stewards, local officers, and union staffers realize they need to think critically and analytically about “the big picture” in their occupation, industry, and society. The challenges facing 15 million union members-and eight times as many unorganized workers-are a product of past workplace struggles, won and lost, and powerful economic and political forces that need to be analyzed and better understood. As Lee argues, trade unionists can even find out “what works and what doesn’t” by studying “the experience of others in our globalized world.”
John Sweeney’s election as AFL-CIO president in 1995–and the forced retirement of the federation’s old Cold War leadership- improved the intellectual climate in labor and led to a minor-book publishing boom. Since 1995, trade publishers like Houghton-Mifflin, New Press, and Verso, plus university presses like Cornell, Temple, and Wayne State, have all issued collections of labor-related essays inspired by the AFL-CIO shake-up or published book-length assessments of the state of labor and the forces for change within it. One such title was Sweeney’s own call to arms, America Needs a Raise: Fighting For Economic Security and Social Justice. Another contemporaneous volume, with multiple contributors, was inspired by the labor “teach-ins” organized by Scholars, Artists, and Writers for Social Justice (SAWSJ), a group of left-wing academics and public intellectuals previously estranged from the union officialdom. At its founding, SAWSJ hailed “the new wave of hope and energy surging through the AFL-CIO.” It also pledged to support Sweeney’s “New Voice” leadership with more campus solidarity activity, plus supportive research and writing on the “remobilization” of unions and the transformation of work in America.
As more trade unionists joined labor historians, sociologists, industrial relations experts and worker educators in a wide-ranging debate about new strategies for labor, additional books have appeared which highlight model campaigns. On my bookshelf alone I can count nearly a dozen such titles, all containing case studies in how to “remake,” reshape,” “revitalize,” “reorganize,” or “restructure” unions. Frustrated with the actual pace of these efforts, the Services Employees International Union (SEIU) and six union allies broke with the AFL-CIO in 2005 and formed a new federation. This contentious development initially aroused deep concern among some labor-oriented academics. Yet the public criticism (and self-criticism) aired in connection with the AFL-CIO rift has now inspired a new round of publishing activity-just like Sweeney’s own election did a decade before. First out of the box was Change-to-Win (CTW) founding father Andy Stern, who put his own spin on the split in his 2006 book, A Country That Works: Getting America Back on Track. Other books appearing more recently-like Bill Fletcher and Fernando Gapasin’s Solidarity Divided-have explored what went wrong with Sweeney’s reform project and whether CTW represents a real alternative to it.(4)
Unless they are national union presidents-with the ability to use dues money to promote their book or purchase it in bulk for internal distribution-labor-oriented authors must work hard to reach union members as readers.(5) Few writers on the subject of work or working class organizations have the creativity, journalistic ability, and mainstream media cachet of Barbara Ehrenreich. Her 2001 work, Nickel and Dimed, represents the gold-standard of commercial publishing success involving a labor-related book-1.5 million sold. Only Tom Geoghegan’s Which Side Are You On? comes anywhere close to Ehrenreich’s best-seller in terms of cross-over appeal. And, as some reviewers (including this one) noted at the time, Geoghegan’s 1991 account of his career as a Chicago labor lawyer was not really intended for the rank-and-file-which he sometimes reduced to humorous stereotypes. Rather, it was aimed at an audience of Yuppies—liberal-minded, upper-middle class readers (including friends and classmates of the author long puzzled by his post-Harvard affinity for blue-collar causes and clients).
The University Press ConstraintThe first constraint faced by many labor writers is publishing with a university press, rather than a “trade”book-seller like Holt or Farrar, Straus & Giroux, the publishers of Ehrenreich and Geoghegan respectively.(6) Academic publishers are quite proficient at turning doctoral theses into books that can help junior faculty members get tenure (no matter how small their press run or sales figures). But university press marketing departments are not well equipped to attract the attention of working class readers or the general public. The U.S. boasts more than 100 campus-based publishing houses but, altogether, they account for only 1% of all books produced.(7) The number of university presses which specialize in labor history, culture, politics, industrial relations, and/or contemporary union issues can be counted on one hand. Within that small group, even a very committed backer of labor books like the Cornell ILR Press finds it a challenge to reach a large audience. According to longtime editor Fran Benson, the average ILR Press book sells about 2,000 to 2,500 copies (in hard and soft cover). Thus, as Labor Studies Journal editor Bruce Nissen observes, “Any labor book selling over 5,000 copies is a ‘best seller.’”
The relative “success” or “failure” of such books depends on several factors. One is their accessibility and appeal to a non-academic readers. Benson reports that books in her labor series often do better than Cornell titles generally because labor activists, not just fellow academics, buy them–if the material is topical and well-written. Among these non-academic book buyers are the large number of college-educated young people who’ve gravitated toward the labor movement after being involved with campus workers, anti-sweatshop campaigns, or graduate student unionization.
Some of Benson’s “best-sellers” have gotten a boost from the bulk order patronage of unions whose organizing, bargaining, or strike activity has been chronicled by Cornell authors. For example, then-USWA President George Becker was sufficiently pleased with the favorable portrait of himself-and his union’s campaign on behalf of locked out West Virginia aluminum workers–that he ordered 5,000 copies of Ravenswood: The Steelworkers’ Victory and the Revival of American Labor by Kate Bronfenbrenner and Tom Juravich. To demonstrate SEIU’s interest in nursing issues and provide non-union nurses and its own RN members with free copies, Andy Stern bought 5,000 copies of Suzanne Gordon’s Nursing Against the Odds, published by Cornell in 2004. (As noted above, Stern’s bulk buy of his own book was presumably much larger, since A Country That Works was promoted everywhere in SEIU, not just in health care locals.) A popular speaker at nursing conferences and training sessions, Gordon has tried to maintain friendly ties with many different RN organizations-not all of which are on speaking terms with each other. Her most recent book, Safety In Numbers, highlights the successful campaign for state-mandated RN-patient staffing ratios waged by the California Nurses Association (CNA), a bitter rival of SEIU. Yet some CNAers were displeased that the book was, in their view, insufficiently critical of SEIU’s stance on ratios. While Gordon’s latest work was reviewed in Registered Nurse, CNA’s national magazine, the union has, according to the author, otherwise distanced itself from a book that actually burnishes its own reputation.(8)
Intra-union politics can limit book publicity even more than inter-union rivalries, as Texas law professor Julius Getman has discovered. When Cornell published his valuable account of a pivotal strike at International Paper in the late 1980s, the response of the United Paperworkers International Union (UPIU) was chilly indeed. Getman’s title alone–The Betrayal of Local 14: Paperworkers, Politics, and Permanent Replacements–created marketing problems within the UPIU, since no union likes to be criticized for failing to support a militant local during a difficult contract struggle. Now part of the USWA, UPIU officials detested Getman’s book and completely ignored it in their national union newspaper. As a result, The Betrayal of Local 14 received far less notice than it deserved in the labor press-except in those unofficial publications, like Labor Notes, which had previously covered the IP strike in Jay, Maine and other mills.
Promoting Labor BooksAssuming their material is not as controversial as Getman’s, authors who maintain a well-designed website-and line-up book-related speaking engagements–can boost their sales via on-line marketing and personal networking. Adjunct professor Joe Berry collaborated with the North American Alliance for Fair Employment to create an excellent site publicizing Berry’s 2005 Monthly Review book aimed at non-tenure track teachers in higher education. The site highlights upcoming appearances by the author, relevant biographical information, recent reviews of Reclaiming The Ivory Tower, and updates on adjunct faculty organizing around the country. (According to Berry, NAAFE also partnered with Monthly Review to co-publish the book, “kicking in enough dollars to assure MRP that they would not take a bath on the title.”)(9)
Jack Metzger, a fellow labor educator in Chicago, was similarly able to utilize personal and professional contacts, developed over many years, to promote Striking Steel. The son of a steelworker, Metzger grew up in a Pennsylvania mill town and later became the co-founder and editor of Labor Research Review. His book was praised in the pages of Steel Labor, the USWA’s national magazine, by former USWA president Lynn Williams; the author also made a special effort to reach union retirees (whose work lives in the 1950s and 60s are movingly described in the book). Nevertheless, according to Metzger, “even getting a book in the hands of people you know takes a long time and a lot of work.”
The Self-publishing and Worker Education OptionWith this challenge in mind, some labor-oriented writers have taken matters into their own hands and turned to self-publishing to expedite the process of book production and marketing, from start to finish. (10) More than twenty years ago, Boston labor lawyer Bob Schwartz approached the Bureau of National Affairs (BNA)-a leading publisher of legal newsletters and case reporters-with a proposal for a steward’s guide to labor law. BNA wasn’t interested. So Schwartz started Work Rights Press, now based in Somerville, Mass., to distribute his Legal Rights of Union Stewards and other books for union activists (all priced between $13 and $24). Since the late 1980s, Schwartz’s steward’s handbook has sold 600,000 copies (and continues to sell, in both Spanish and English editions, at the rate of about 25,000 per year). His next best-seller is a guide to the Family and Medical Leave Act; since publication of its first edition a decade ago, that book has sold 100,000 copies. An explanation of workers comp in Massachusetts, which Schwartz has repeatedly updated over the years, has 50,000 to 60,000 copies in circulation, while a broader guide to state employment law has sold 25,000 copies in multiple editions. Only Schwartz’s most recent work, on Strikes, Picketing, and Inside Campaigns, has yet to sell out its original press run of 5,000–notwithstanding a glowing review of it by this author (based on the book’s introduction). Lagging sales are no doubt related to the abandonment of the strike weapon by too many unions.
What’s the key to Schwartz’s overall success? Well, unlike other authors of heavily foot-noted volumes, his discussion of legal decisions, legislative history, and the workings of labor-related administrative agencies is highly accessible. Schwartz writes short, punchy, understandable sentences and paragraphs, uses side-bar boxes, and Q&A sections at the end of each chapter. He also employs an excellent cartoonist to illustrate his work in humorous fashion. His Work Rights Press series draws on the broader publishing tradition of “do-it-yourself” and “self-help” books, a genre that’s far more familiar to union activists than dense volumes of labor history or industrial sociology. Local union work-when combined with family life, community activities, and the demands of bargaining unit employment-doesn’t leave much time for educational reading on the side. The only book that many stewards have time to bury their nose in is the contract itself. Nevertheless, both full-time union officials-and what the British call “lay representatives” (working members who represent their co-workers on the job)-are expected to be familiar with a large body of additional information related to job rights and benefits, collective bargaining procedures, and, in some cases, union administration and financial record-keeping.
So when Schwartz’s Work Rights Press or the Detroit-based Labor Education and Research Project (LERP) produce easy-to-read guides for being a good steward, running a better local union, or conducting effective contract campaigns, there is a ready-made market for them. LERP has sold over 32,000 copies of its Troublemaker’s Handbooks, volumes I and II, edited by Dan LaBotz and Jane Slaughter. The Project’s 1999 book, Democracy is Power attracted 5,000 readers and every issue of Labor Notes, the monthly newsletter LERP has published for nearly 30 years, promotes other books by authors like Kim Moody, Sheila Cohen, Dan Clawson, and Vanessa Tait. To sustain its labor education and publishing, Labor Notes relies on an international network of trade union militants, sympathetic local unions, local or national union reform caucuses. This far-flung community of supporters comes together every other year-most recently in April, 2008–at a conference in Michigan attended by 1,000 activists (plus a few authors and publishers) who share Labor Notes’ goal of putting “the movement back in the labor movement.”
On their own (or in connection with similar book promotion ventures), several other worker education projects have encouraged reading as well. The American Labor Education Center-run by Matt Witt, a former communications director for the Mine Workers, Teamsters, and Service Employees–publicizes “out of the mainstream” books (and films)-which is to say those dealing with labor. Witt’s online reviews appear eight times a year at www.TheWorkSite.org and are also published in New Labor Forum. In addition to producing a newsletter for stewards and a labor news and graphics service for union editors, David Prosten’s Union Communication Services (UCS) publishes a labor book catalogue once a year. Distributed to 70,000 potential readers, this 60-page brochure features volumes on labor history, economics, and bargaining, plus union-oriented books for children and young adults. Prosten’s catalogue (which can be found at www.unionist.com) includes both practical “tools for union leaders and activists” -of the sort published by WRP and LERP-and popular biographies of Mother Jones, Eugene Debs, A. Philip Randolph, and Cesar Chavez. Prosten’s own nuts-and-bolts handbook, “The Union Steward’s Complete Guide,” has sold more than 50,000 copies-thanks to UCS marketing efforts like its annual catalogue.
How Labor Sites and Magazines Treat BooksOn Labour Start, Eric Lee’s cross-border labor campaign site, book reviews are regularly posted to generate orders from both Prosten’s catalogue and Powells, the unionized book-seller in Portland, Oregon. (Labour Start now lists almost 300 recommended titles in its “on-line bookstore” and, at www.powellsunion.com one can find books favored by the ILWU Local 3 members who work at Powells.) Even the AFL-CIO has made book buying easier via its own “on-line retail store” for labor activists. The federation’s “Union Shop” has a much smaller selection of books competing for “shelf space” with union posters, sweat-shirts, golf balls, mugs, movies, games, and other merchandise. For reasons noted above, none of the fifteen books on labor history or contemporary union affairs that it features are likely to ruffle any feathers among AFL affiliates. (11)
The web page of the independent United Electrical Workers markets two classic labor books-Them and Us: The Struggles of a Rank-and-File Union by journalist James Higgins and the UE’s first organizing director, James Matles, and Labor’s Untold Story by Richard Boyer and Herbert Morais. (Originally published commercially in 1974, Them and Us was updated and reissued by the UE in 1995; first published half a century ago, the Boyer-Morais account of U.S. labor history is now in its third edition and 26th printing, thanks to the UE’s commitment to keeping it available for labor educator use, inside and outside the union.) Meanwhile, on the west coast, every issue of Dispatcher, publication of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, carries a plug for ILWU-approved labor history books and videos, including several bios of union founder Harry Bridges, accounts of the 1934 San Francisco general strike, and David Wellman’s 1995 Cambridge University Press study, The Union Makes Us Strong: Radical Unionism on the San Francisco Waterfront (12).
Unfortunately, other national union sites offer little in the way of good reading. As Lee reports, “The Teamsters sell a whole range of products including watches, clocks, jewelry, clothing, leather goods, glassware and hats-but not a single book.” (In the July/August, 2008, issue of The Teamster magazine, however, the IBT did find space for an author interview– with St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Philip Dine, who wrote State of The Unions.). Meanwhile, the American Federation of Teachers’ website provides a Powells.com link so members can order the latest Harry Potter from a union shop; yet, according to Lee, the AFT “doesn’t recommend any book that teachers might find useful and interesting as trade unionists.” (In 2008, the union proved Eric partially wrong by finally touting one book on its site-a flattering biography of the late AFT chieftain Albert Shanker, written by Richard Kahlenberg and entitled, Tough Liberal.)
Such an underplaying of books seems particularly inexcusable in a white-collar union whose members have acquired 4-year (and advanced) degrees to teach reading and writing, among other subjects. As longtime AFT member Joe Berry explains: “Teachers themselves don’t necessarily read much more than an average reader-which is to say, not as much as you might hope or wish.” In his own role as a recruiter of students for labor ed programs run by the University of Illinois, Berry visits labor councils and attends local union membership meetings around the state. There, he keeps alive the old labor education tradition of a ‘bookstore in a box” by setting up a literature table at every stop. (His car is, in fact, a rolling bookstore, full of such boxes!) In addition to displaying his own recent book (mentioned above), Berry offers titles ranging from Howard Zinn’s People’s History of The United States to the Lenny Moss mystery series authored by Tim Sheard (in which a hospital union steward in Philadelphia moonlights as a detective). Months after setting up his book display at a labor event-and, often, making many sales-Berry sometimes receives emails from satisfied customers, telling him how much they enjoyed a non-fiction book or novel he sold them.
In my own experience, doing labor education work within the Communications Workers of America (CWA), book promotion efforts were always well received by the rank-and-file. For many years, Cornell’s Lee Adler and I jointly organized a week-long leadership school for CWA activists in the northeast. Since this program was held in Ithaca, home of the ILR Press, and at a conference center operated by the School of Industrial and Labor Relations, I began organizing an annual Cornell “book-and-author” event for the 100 or more CWA students in attendance. The authors were usually recruited locally-among them, ILR School faculty members like Lance Compa, Jeff Cowie, Kate Bronfenbrenner, and Bill Sonnenstuhl. Their topics included workers rights as human rights, runaway shops in manufacturing, successful organizing tactics, and local union involvement in Employee Assistance Programs.
Either at breakfast or during a lunch break, speakers would talk to our CWA group about a recent book they had written, take questions about it, and sign copies for any buyers. CWAers were encouraged to make purchases from the large selection of other books-laid out on a table manned by ILR Press staffers–so they could start building a library for themselves or their local union back home. For most members involved, this was the first “book-signing” they had ever attended. Some responded so enthusiastically that they returned to their locals with stacks of ILR Press titles, catalogues, and order forms. To underline the importance of reading as part of what would hopefully be a career-long quest for personal self-improvement, I told the first-year students at one such CWA school that buying reading, and writing a review of an ILR Press book was a requirement for returning to Cornell the next year. (This “homework” assignment was later waived, but the point was made.) When I asked ILR extension program staffers and the ILR Press whether any other labor organization using Cornell’s conference center had ever sponsored any similar “book-and-author” events, they confirmed that none ever had.
If more unions took similar initiatives, there could be far greater book-selling synergy with university presses (or any cooperating labor book publisher) whenever union members are being trained at university facilities like Cornell’s or union-operated education centers, like the George Meany Center or the Maritime Institute, both located in Maryland. In an earlier era, some unions like the Auto Workers even operated book clubs for their members. Les Leopold’s The Man Who Hated Work recalls how OCAW leader Tony Mazzocchi, a ninth grade drop-out, launched a book discussion group among local union activists on Long Island, in the mid-1950s.
“Tony’s group saw itself as part of a working-class culture that encouraged self-education. Soon there were more than twenty people enrolled in the University of Mazzocchi. The introductory curriculum packed a political wallop. It started with Howard Fast….books such as Freedom Road, Spartacus and Citizen Tom Paine. Then, the group turned to the history of American class struggle through such works as Labor’s Untold Story and The History of the Fur and Leather Workers. For some, the reading group opened the door to more traditional literature as well. [One member] recalled how they passed around the Iliad and the Odyssey.” (13)
Progressive Book ClubIn the larger left-liberal community today, the idea of a liberal–if not left-wing–book club is making a come-back. In June, 2008, a group of politically-active journalists, novelists, and non-fiction writers launched a new venture “which combines the offerings of a traditional book club with the interactive features of an online social network and the ideals of a grass-roots political party.” (14) The Progressive Book Club (PBC) is backed by magazines and/or blogs like The Nation, Mother Jones, The Huffington Post, Daily Koz, Salon, and others. It hopes to attract a membership of several hundred thousand in the next few years, with the participation of major publishers and smaller houses like Chelsea Green Publishing and Soft Skull Press. (Founded more than forty years ago, the PBC’s well-established counterpart on the right-the Conservative Book Club-boasts more than 80,000 members today.)
Among the PBC’s two hundred initial offerings, there are fewer than ten labor-related titles. One of them is PBC editorial board member Andy Stern’s own book, A Country That Works. (To its credit, SEIU is also an organizational sponsor of the club- and the only union involved so far.) Stern’s fellow board member, Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation, cites the conservative movement’s success in spreading its ideas, via books, as one reason why more of the liberal-left, including labor, should get on board. Says vanden Heuvel: “It seems like a good time to rededicate ourselves to the notion that ideas have power and consequence, and that the grassroots can use those ideas to create change.”
“The Progressive Book Club was established to help restore balance to American discourse by bringing progressive voices and issues to the forefront. It offers a strong social networking platform-members can learn, debate, interact, and exchange ideas through PBC’s vibrant online community. Offline there will be opportunities to interact with authors, progressive opinion leaders, and fellow members at local events, readings, and book discussions.” (15)
Preoccupied as they may be with their own survival struggles, more unions would be well-advised to join SEIU in promoting the PBC-or, better yet, starting their own, smaller-scale version of it. This could be done in conjunction with the handful of labor-oriented journals which regularly review or run excerpts from labor-related books, or by a group of cooperating labor studies centers. Either way, it’s long past time for progressives in labor to find new methods of encouraging rank-and-file reading-or to revive some of the old-fashioned ones.
Notes:1) Rachel Donadio, “You’re an Author? Me Too!” The New York Times Book Review, April 27, 2008, page. 27.Back to Text
2) Eric Lee, “Educate, Agitate, Organize: Selling Labor Books On-Line,”
The Industrial Worker, May, 2005, page 4. (Available on line at www.labourstart.org/books.shtml)Back to Text
3) See Embedded In American Labor: Journalistic Reflections On The Class War At Home, forthcoming in Spring/Summer, 2009, from Monthly Review Press.Back to Text
4) For more in that genre, see also Kim Moody, U.S. Labor in Trouble and Transition: The Failure of Reform from Above, the Promise of Revival from Below, (Verso, 2007).Back to Text
5) Stern’s 2006 book is not the first to benefit from a “captive market” of union members. See, for example, From Telegraph to the Internet, another ghost-assisted volume, published in 1998 by then-Communications Workers of America president Morty Bahr. With a forward by his good friend Senator Edward Kennedy, a longtime recipient of CWA political contributions, Bahr’s book was “marketed” within the union much like Stern’s has been inside and outside SEIU–as “part autobiography, part labor history, and part vision of how unions can proceed into the next century.”Back to Text
6) Since Which Side Are You On? and Nickel and Dimed appeared, two of the few remaining daily newspaper reporters assigned to the labor beat have turned their reportage into widely-publicized trade press books on the state of working life and/or organized labor in America. In 2007, St. Louis Post Dispatch reporter Phil Dine published “State of the Unions (McGraw-Hill), followed by New York Times staffer Steve Greenhouse’s book, “The Big Squeeze: Tough Times For The American Worker” (Borzoi Books, 2008).Back to Text
7) Andre Shifrin, “How To Pay For A Free Press,” Le Monde Diplomatique, October, 2007.Back to Text
In the interests of full disclosure, I should mention that Gordon is my wife and that I have also contracted with Cornell to write a book about the influence of Sixties’ radicals within American labor. Gordon is co-editor of an ILR Press series on the “Culture and Politics of Health Care Work” which publishes her own books on care-giving work and others. Gordon’s series of books on nursing have sold nearly 100,000 copies, with most of her readers being working RNs and nursing students.Back to Text
9) Berry’s publisher (and mine), Monthly Review, is part of a third option available to labor authors interested in by-passing both trade and academic publishers. Left-wing independent publishing houses include MR Press, 106-year old Charles H. Kerr Publishing in Chicago and Boston’s Sixties-inspired South End Press. MRP has a number of good labor-related titles, including Michael Yates’ 20,000 selling Why Unions Matter (about to appear in a new edition) and his more recent, very entertaining Cheap Motels and A Hot Plate: An Economists Travelogue (2007). Kerr’s catalogue runs heavily toward “Wobbly classics”-books for and about members of the Industrial Workers of the World. But its list also includes the work of non-IWW writers like Martin Glaberman. South End has published more than 250 left-leaning titles since 1977-among them labor-oriented books like Vanessa Tait’s Poor Workers’ Unions: Rebuilding Labor From Below.
10) See, for example, New York City carpenter Greg Butler’s Disunited Brotherhoods: Race, Racketeering, and The Fall of New York Construction Unions, published by iUniverse in 2006.Back to Text
11) At the local level, at least one AFL-CIO central labor council leader used his regular radio show on WDEV in Vermont to interview authors of a wider range of labor books. Guests of talk show host Traven Leyshon, a Labor Notes supporter and president of the Washington-Orange-Lamoille Labor Council, have included Bill Fletcher, Fernando Gapasin, Suzanne Gordon, and other writers.Back to Text
12) Two Canadian unions have creatively supported and promoted more contemporary portraits of themselves. Despite his own recent criticism of the union leadership, Sam Gindin’s book, The Canadian Auto Workers: Birth and Transformation Of A Union, is still advertised on the CAW’s website; meanwhile, Jamie Swift’s Walking The Union Walk: Stories From The CEP’s First Ten Years is still widely used in the education programs of the Communications, Energy, and Paperworkers to promote solidarity
among the disparate elements of that recently amalgamated national union.Back to Text
13) Les Leopold, The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor: The Life and Times of Tony Mazzocchi.” (Chelsea Green Press, 2008). For more on “working class intellectuals”- in the pre-television era-see Jonathan Rose’s “The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes” (Yale University Press, 2001). Rose’s study of what one reviewer calls an “enormously energetic working-class reading culture” describes the varied literature that workers read and discussed in 20th century Britain.Back to Text
14) See Associated Press report, June 16, 2008. Also Motoko Rich, “A Book Club Courts Liberals,” The New York Times, June 16, 2008. For more information on how the PBC works, see www.progressivebookclub.com. 15) Katrina vanden Heuvel, “Progressive Book Lovers of the World, Unite! June 16, 2008 Steve Early has written about labor for The Nation, The Progressive, In These Times, Tikkun, Social Policy, The American Prospect, New Politics, New Labor Forum, WorkingUSA, Against The Current, and many other publications. As a national staff member of the Communications Workers of America, he was involved in union organizing, bargaining, and strike activity for 27 years. This article is adapted from the introduction and afterward to Embedded With Organized Labor: Journalistic Reflections On The Class War At Home (Monthly Review Press, 2009). It originally appared in the Jan/Feb 2009 issue of Against the Current.
posted on http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut/330135Back to Text
The Taqwacores is a novel about a strange community, to put it mildly. To even try and come up with a single word or a sentence that could capture even the gist of the crew of Muslim punk artists is mindwrecking.
The title, “Taqwacores”, combines taqwa, the Arabic word for “piety,” with “hardcore,” used to describe many genres of angry Western music (and also adult movies). So the protagonist Yusuf Ali experiences “taqwacores” as deep Muslim piety mixed with angry hardcore music (played in praise of God), and mixed with a dose of sex (both soft and hardcore). When I say mixed, I mean piety/music/sex often coincide. The story begins when Yusuf, who comes from an average Muslim family of Pakistani origin, lodges in with a group of Muslim youth in Buffalo. There stops mundaneity. Every trace of the average, the regular, the orderly vanishes. There is not a moment Yusuf’s mind is not twisted and bent. What fascinates him the most is perhaps the burqa-wearing feminist guitar player who leads men in prayer and delivers sermons. A lot of stuff for some Muslims to be angry over. But Muhammad Knight, speaking through his characters, arguing back and forth through their own dialogues, seems to suggest, there are many things Muslims should be angry about such as Osama bin Laden and the likes of him, and their picture of Islam that they try to palm off on other people. The punk crew can rage against things such as the treatment of Muslims in the post 9-11 America as well as the moral-police in a Muslim country who let dozens of women burn inside a building because they would not let streetwalkers see women without traditional hejab (head-cover etc).
Muhammad Knight was born an Irish Catholic in upstate New York and converted to Islam as a teenager. He studied at a mosque in Pakistan but became disillusioned with Islam after learning about the sectarian battles after the death of Muhammad. He said he wrote The Taqwacores to mend the rift between his being an observant Muslim and an angry American youth. He found validation in the life of Muhammad, who instructed people to ignore their leaders, destroy their petty deities and follow only God. In the novel, Muhammad Knight often makes references to various Sufi poets who were rebels of their times. One of the characters even claims boldly that the Islamic messenger Muhammad was the hard core punk artist of his time. The small community sing in praise of his anti-establishment actions, his smashing of false idols etc. The book paints the Muslim punk scene with such flavor I am not at all surprised some readers contacted the author and asked where and when were the forthcoming concerts. (Note: Mark Levine wrote a book about the current rock and punk scene in the Middle East, entitled Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Resistance, and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam.)
One can say a lot about why and how disturbing and innovative, and yet how old-fashioned the book can appear in its focus on identity crises. One thing that strikes me is the way a community is described. We conceive of community as a gathering of people who have a common ground, a common essence perhaps. Community is often based on myth, be it of religious or secular nature. The motley crew of The Taqwacores indeed have something in common, their love of God. Yet, they are both religious and absolutely against religion. There is nothing they more respect and disrespect as Islam. They absolutely love it, and yet any “ordinary” Muslim would say they disrespect every single aspect of Islam, except perhaps devotion to God himself. To them, to maintain a dose of disrespect to religion is the best way to avoid what Islam is against, the worship of anything but God. They try to demythologize the myth of Islamic community and at the same time uphold it. Their community is not a single thing connected to for instance body, fatherland, nation, leader, language. Any such community, to them, loses the essence of what J-L. Nancy called being-in-common, and the with-together. Even though they believe in God, their “in-common”, their being-in-common does not amount to a substance that absorbs everything. Rather what they share is a strong sense of finitude and a lack of substantial identity, ideal or empirical such. They are inifinitely aware of their finitude, of their lack of infinite identity in the face of the God they worship through they punk rituals (which are not even real rituals because they change from day to day). The interesting thing is that they are not really kids with shattered identities, simply alienated, and all that jazz. They are quite certain in their persuasions and do not hold back in their extreme need to express their positions, spiritual or political. They expose themselves totally, in the true sense of the word: they pose themselves as open to others in the deepest intimacy of their own being. This seems to me what makes their peculiar community, a community that is not society they react against. Community but not society.
Note: The Taqwacores is coming out as a film. Read more at Zabiha News. The picture below taken from this site.
