Author: k4books

Full time Mom, Wife, and Worker. Avid reader, serial volunteer, and dog lover.
books, reading

Hotel Cuba by Aaron Hamburger

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After the Great War in Europe there was continued turmoil, especially in Eastern Europe.  The Tsar fell, the Whites came, then the Reds, the Poles, and more. All that Jews in the shtetls knew was that life was dangerous for them. Getting out, however, was not easy. Isolationist throughout the world were closing the doors, especially to these Jews. When confronted with the choice to wait until something changed or board a boat to Cuba, Pearl and her sister Frieda go to Cuba.

The Jewish diaspora, however, seeks to help others and they were met at the boat and brought home to a Jewish organization that helped feed and house them until they found jobs. With Pearl’s skills as a seamstress, they were able to be placed with a Jewish couple that had a millenary shop.

While they are sisters, Pearl has been raising Frieda since she was responsible for her after their mother died in childbirth. Pearl also took over the tasks of her mother, making the home for the family, cooking for all her father, the cantor, would invite to shabbas. The responsibility for taking care of Frieda continued in Cuba, with Frieda dreaming of her fiancé in Detroit, and Pearl always being realistic about what work needed to get done.

Each sister has a role to play, as in any family. With the stress of trying to make it to America with the doors closing tighter every day, these become exacerbated. Pearl finally agrees to help get the money to pay for Frieda to be smuggled to the US. After this, Pearl is on her own for the first time. She works hard but misses her family. She pays to go to Key West, but is found and sent back. Through the people she meets there and those she meets back in Cuba when she is sent back, she learns to stand strong for herself and make her desires known.

A strong woman in that era is not looked upon nicely. Through her strength of character, she finds what she wants, asks for it, and to her surprise, she earns it.  The person who is most surprised is Pearl.

An interesting alternative to how to get into the US, and there is truth in the desperation of those trying to get out of Europe. While there are some easy guesses to make, I thought it was an enjoyable read.    

books, read around the world, reading

Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

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This is the story of courage. Of a young woman, born in Somalia on the brink of war, carrying the weight of clan, gender and religious expectations, who is able to raise her head to question Why? She is able to do this despite the institutions around her trying to beat her into complete submission – literally and figuratively.

Ayaan is the eldest child of her father’s second marriage. Her beloved father, a prominent scholar and revolutionary leader in Somalia, was away fighting to build Somalia into an Islamic country for much of her childhood. This left her mother and grandmother to raise Ayaan, her sister and brother by the grace of clan members that were providing funding and other supports while the family was in exile – in Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Kenya. Devoted to Islam, the family was exposed to the developing Muslim Brotherhood and the strict rules of observance demanded by the religion. Ayaan was able to survive despite the obstacles set before her. She was beaten by her mother for not doing enough around the house (cleaning, cooking, laundry) even though Ayaan was actually trying to complete her school work; when in Ethiopia her cousins arranged for all three children to be circumcised – for a woman that mean cutting out her clitoris and sewing her genitals together to keep her pure; friendships outside of the religion are shunned – it is forbidden to befriend someone outside the faith – and the Quran was taught to be a holy book that could not be questioned. But when men began asking for Ayaan’s hand in marriage – never to her directly – she began to question why she had no choice or voice in who or when she was to marry.

After years of deflecting, and a hidden marriage that was not consummated due to her circumcision, her father came home from the mosque and announced she was to marry a man from Canada he had met that morning. Without asking, her fate was bound to a man her father knew for two hours. After pushing back, and not attending the wedding ritual (she was not required to be there, only her father) the deed was done. As her new husband was a Canadian, she was sent to Germany to improve her odds at getting a visa. While there, Ayaan planned her escape and made it to the Netherlands where she was granted refugee status. While there Ayaan became enthralled with the way the government worked – so helpful and caring. But what she witnessed was her clansmen – and her religion – keeping to the words of the Quran to not mix with non-believers. Through her strong ability to learn languages, she became a translator and was able to hear the stories of women being beaten by husbands and not prosecuting, honor killings for having a boyfriend, doctors trying to help women through births after being sewn as a child, and more “norms” that are foreign to people outside the construct of what Ayaan was brought up in. When the planes hit the World Trade Center in New York on 9/11, she heard the words from the Quran being used to justify the attacks, and knew that was not a fringe element, these were quotes from the Quran that are meant to be literal. Through this horror, Ayaan realized that Muslim Brotherhood had no desire to become part of the societies they moved to as refugees – that they wanted the protections but also wanted to remain outside the norms of the society they now resided in. That included the ongoing subjugation of women.

It became her purpose in life to speak out about the injustice women in the closed Muslim communities faced, and worked to encourage a reformation of Islam to not live by the Quran as unquestionable – she saw it as a way to remain in the middle-ages when it was written – but to interpret its texts for the age we live in. It was through her outspokenness that she came to be part of the Dutch parliament, trying to raise her voice to have others speak about the atrocities that were occurring that were being explained away by “multiculturalism” and allowing others to be different while turning a blind eye to the fact that there was no interest in becoming part of the social ethics that created the space for these people to come to. Due to her need to be heard, she did not shy from debates. Now under constant threat for her life, the fear was realized when her collaborator on a film, Theo Van Gogh, was murdered in broad daylight, with a 5 page memo to her stabbed in his torso on why she must die too.

While she is now in hiding, she continues to work for an American think tank to help create policy for protecting these Muslim women and girls. No longer in touch with her family for turning her back on Islam, she is nevertheless cut from the same cloth as her father – both worked to make a government bring about a better world for others.

For me, the biggest why is why is are you not allowed to ask questions? Why, in so many places on earth, for so many millennium, is a woman denied a voice? What makes us so powerful that we are to be smothered? Is it because Eve tempted Adam with an apple? Is that the reason women are not allowed to speak, to be seen, to be beaten into complete subjugation? For asking what else there may be in the world? This placing of blame ignores the fact that Adam – or any man – should have a brain, and ethics, to react and be held accountable for their own actions. By removing any responsibility for making choices creates a world where power is absolute and unquestioning.

We need to make sure that women and men understand that each has responsibility for each other – to treat each other with compassion, to do what is right for others now and in the next life, and to be judged by this alone. Until we lift each other up, protecting those who can’t, we are all doomed to remain in the dark.

books, reading

100 places to see after you die by Ken Jennings

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Yes, this was written by THAT Ken Jennings of Jeopardy! Fame. 

This is a non-fiction book that explores the afterlife as it is depicted in myth, religion, books, movies, television, music and theater. The shear volume of details here is mind bending. Starting with mythology and religion, what strikes me is that for all the differences that we are all supposed to have, the paths to heaven and hell seem pretty similar. There are also convenient gaps in information for inconvenient truths – like babies that die before being baptized going to hell – or look for the loophole!  Themes of rings of hell, crossing over rivers, being met by family and friends are mostly there. The details may end up slightly different, but all in all they are similar.

The differentiation in the destinations and path begins to be apparent when we get to how other mere mortals interpret the concept. When creative people begin to tell stories of what to expect, definitions of Hell, Brimstone, Heaven and even God begin to take on the shapes of the cultures these are developed in. Why are there so many incarnations of God as a male being? And how many people picture an old white dude with a beard?  How can this be true if we are all created in God’s image? That would mean that God would be half male and half female (as depicted in the 1991 movie Switch), and ethnically 31% Asian, 25% Middle Eastern, 18% Caucasian, 15% Black, and 12%Other. I think you get my point. 

I admit the places to go and see in the worlds defined by people seem far more attractive than the ones defined by religion and myth. The depressing concepts of eternally paying for sins in fire and brimstone could have driven the ideas of a nicer “afterlife” to look forward to.

This book has some seriously funny asides, but in general this is more an exploration of what these ideas are. Is art imitating life, or the other way around? What do we all really believe? This book lays it all out for us to examine and determine for ourselves what we may be exposed to. There never seems to be any slideshows or photo albums to review after, however. 

books, read around the world, reading

Pieces of Happiness by Anne Ostby

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What would you do if your childhood friend from 50 years ago sent you a letter asking you to leave your life and come live with her in Fiji on a cocoa farm? That is what happens to four 66 year old women in Norway. They have each gone their own ways, with their own secrets and pains. How would this work out? How has everyone changed? How have they not changed? And what about all the cultural difference between Norway and Fiji? How will they navigate this?

This is the story of five women facing the reality of getting older, at a stage where they are no longer who they thought they were. They come together and face with who they were, who they became, and who they want to be next in the time they have left.

An endearing story of how to find a new chapter when most people write you off, including yourself.   

book-review, books, memoir, Non-Fiction, read around the world, reading

Visiting Oceania with J Maarten Troost

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J Maarten Troost is a travel writer that has lived an extraordinary life. First, he follows his girlfriend to the Equatorian Atoll of Kiribati for two years, returned to Washington DC, only to get restless again. He then follows his wife (same person) to the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu. Through both of his books, The Sex Lives of Cannibals and Getting Stoned with Savages, the raw truth, and the raw sewage, is exposed while living on the other end of the earth. While never taking himself quite seriously, these books impart both the absurdity of island life and some well researched facts on the areas he visits. You actually hear of the colonial history, the remains of this including racial hatred, as well as details of the Neckowiar of Tanna (a rare three-day alliance ceremony between villages) they witnessed, including details of the leaf men wear over their penis for a full day of dance. You learn about the tribal history of the people of Vanuatu, the colonial history of invasion, cannibalism, how to make kava, and how centipedes there can kill. Through it all, you learn of the differences in the cultures of other, how the customs came about, and how it may seem like paradise, but don’t look too closely to see the cracks. These were two fun reads.

book-review, books, Holocaust, literature, reading

All the broken places

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Guilt and complicity. What you have done and what you have not done. Both are things that can torment people. I had heard John Boyne speak about his book All the Broken Pieces , and was intrigued by the idea of what you are complicit of allowing versus what you have committed – and how the sins of the parent are cast on the child. All these ideas led me to buy this book.

I admit, I never read the first book, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.  I also admit I had no idea of the backlash – that the book was considered controversial in its way of conveying the atrocities

The story is simplistic, while trying to deal with complex issues. Gretel grew up faithful to the Third Reich, proud of the part her family played in it, including her father’s role as commander of Auschwitz. As Gretel’s mother states, it was the Jewish problem – first the problems they made for Germans that forced the need for extermination, and then for the problems they wouldn’t stop talking about after the camps were closed – that were a disgrace. Gretel, however, understood the terrible things her father had led. She knew her place in allowing this to happen, even as she hid behind “I was only a child” excuses.  This was underscored in the book by others excuses – they were only following orders or they didn’t know anything about it. Being forced to see the horrors by the French Underground, other Nazi hiders, documentary films and camp survivors, Gretel understood she would live with guilt for the rest of her life. She kept her true self away from others. She tried to atone for the sins she knew, in the only way she knew how.

As the parts of history are unraveled, and the new realities of cruelty she faced within her own building, Gretel finally takes action – to not be one that stands by doing nothing, fulfilling her destiny as she and others had hoped it would be. It is, however, a destiny that is rooted in violence – acting on the brutality of her father’s answers for solving a “problem.”   

I felt this was an interesting read. I am glad I have taken my time to read this. With so much hatred in the world, in the US particularly, understanding the need to stand up and speak out is just as important as jumping into the fight directly.  While I understand that it only glimpses at the true horrors that were experienced by those that were taken and lost their lives at these camps, I don’t believe this story is about them. As in every story, there are always two sides. You do not need to agree with them both, but to ignore them is to do the same thing the Germans did to the Jews. Not all Germans are monsters, just as not all Jews are bad. For me, it is Gretel’s final decision to act with brutality to solve a problem that doesn’t make her a saviour but that allows her to accept she is her father’s child.

book-review, books, Family Drama, Middle Eastern, read around the world, reading

A woman is no man

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A woman is no man by Etaf Rum

Regardless of what religion or nationality, there is a universal truth – women are victims of violence.

In too many cultures women are not valued for anything other than to cook, clean and procreate. This is true in middle-eastern, eastern and western civilizations. These is no corner of this earth that has not been dominated by men, and women are taught on some level of consciousness that they are inferior. There are cultures that adhere more to this belief, and enforce this rigorously. The number of women that are being beaten each day into submission is staggering. The fact that is it accepted as normal and supported by other women is a sad truth to how far the lessons of low worth are ingrained to the communities. This remains true, regardless of the work women have been making in the last century. Books like The Pearl That Broke its Shell, Big Little Lies, Girl on the Train, Black and Blue, and so many more continue to tell these tales. These books cover the world (Afghanistan, Australia, England, and United Stated) and are only a small sample of a much broader and enduring problem. Etaf Rum’s A Woman Is No Man is the story of a Palestinian woman’s life in these circumstances.

In Palestine, an Arab girl named Isra is brought up in her mother’s kitchen, learning to cook and clean. At 17 she is married to a man she meets once and is take to America – Brooklyn – to be his wife. With no money, no connections, and not able to leave the house unaccompanied, Isra works to ensure she does not besmirch her family’s name by doing what is expected.

As the story unfolds, it alternates between Isra’s voice and her daughter Deya’s 18 years later. Deya is about to graduate high school and her grandmother, who is raising her after her parents die in a car accident, is insisting she make a match so she will not continue to be a burden to the family, as girls always are.  Deya receives a letter with a card to contact a familiar figure that she can’t place. As Deya’s quest to find answers brings more questions, we are all faced with the limitations of what we set on ourselves as options.

As the story progresses, we learn of Isra’s fading hopes for love and connection and of the growing violence against her by her husband, of her growing despair and depression, and of her mother in law’s insistence that bruises be covered from other’s eyes. We also learn of Deya’s memories of her mother’s sadness and of her fears that not all was right, of Deya’s fear of being pushed into marriage and inability to continue to learn.

We learn that Deya doesn’t share her memories with her younger sisters to save them from pain. We also learn of other secrets that are kept that are meant to reduce other’s perceived pain.  We learn of choices made in the hope of saving face, in the hope of protecting others, in the hope of convincing yourself, in the hope of being loved.

In the end, we are all exposed for doing these things. Are we complicit if we don’t act against it? How often are we afraid that our actions will make things worse? Or that we are overreacting to something that was not as it seemed.  Etaf Rum has pulled the curtains back on what is largely unspoken inside and outside the Palestinian culture – in the US and abroad. The courage to write of this taboo topic and shameful reality of too many from every background reminds us that by not finding our own voice, question our choices, and think through consequences, the result will perpetuate the pain for others. We must not be complicit in allowing this to continue. We must find the strength to break the cycle of violence. 

book-review, books, literature, reading

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

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Barbara Kingsolver is an author that has proven again and again that she understands the way the world works, with all its ugliness and beauty. With this novel, she yet again proves her superior abilities in story telling. A retelling of Dicken’s David Copperfield in the early 2000s in rural Appalachia, this novel shines its light on the same institutionalized poverty that Dicken’s railed against in Victorian times.

This story introduces you to Damon, known as Demon Copperhead because of his bright red hair. Demon was born to an addicted teen mother that had witnessed the death of his father 3 months before he was born in a trailer in the mountains of Virginia. With every turn Demon faces more odds against him – an addicted mom, an abusive step-father, a dead father, and more with each month. As you follow the path that Demon follows, you see obstacles thrown in his way each time he tries to make things better. Hanging over everyone he knows in Lee County VA is the ever-present need for a fix to take away pain – physical and emotional. We find that, in truth and in fiction, this is because drug companies have identified the largest population on medi=care that requests pain medications to sell aggressively and deceptively to. The people that have already been harmed by the mining industry are then preyed upon by drug companies. While the drugs are a problem, as Demon’s friend from foster care, Tommy points out, this has been a war on people that are different. The Hillbilly jokes keep putting down those that can and do survive by growing, hunting and sharing to fill needs of hungry bellies. 

It is through Demon’s grit and resilience, and ability to make do with what he has and not hope for more, that he is able to survive his trials. Along the way you meet people that don’t care, that care only about themselves, and those that cared but are too jaded with the inability to change things. You also meet the most unlikely people that go out of their way to try to ease someone else’s load or try to help them find their way.  You realize that while there is dark in the world we live in, there is also some light in it.

Near the end you are rooting for some happiness to find him, and you are never sure. You care deeply for him by the time you turn that last page.  And you hope that the ride he is on is a positive one.

book-review, books, Family Drama, literature, reading

The World Played Chess

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by Robert Dugoni

This is a complex, intertwining story told by two men in three time periods. We start in 2016 when Vincent, a successful lawyer, receives a journal from an old friend he hadn’t heard from in years.  The author of the journal was William – someone that Vinny met when he was 18 in the summer of 1979. William, 12 years older than Vinny, had made a strong impression on him, and while he never spoke of the friend, this relationship helped shape the way Vinny approached life. William’s journal was written when he was an 18-year-old going off to Vietnam in 1967. Vinny had been a witness to William’s PTSD that summer, when he couldn’t fathom how difficult choices in life can be and how they change your course forever.

In 1979 Vinny just graduated as valedictorian, was accepted into Stanford, but his family was unable to pay the tuition and he is devastated. Instead, he is headed to community college. As he parties with his friends that summer before school, he takes a job in construction. There he meets William, a Vietnam vet twelve years older than he is. Over the course of the summer William tells stories of what he lived through as his life unravels.

As Vinny reads the journal in 2016, one entry each day, he is also preparing for his son Beau to graduate high school and go off into the world.  Disappointments and frustration are all there, as Beau tries to become independent and make his own decisions. After a tragedy Vinny watches as Beau struggles with the fragility of life. He is seeing personally that growing old is a privilege, not a right. Through Vinny’s eyes we see the pain of watching youth stolen from both William and Beau at the same point of life. You are reminded that the moments in between are all about shaping who you are. You need to accept your abilities, and make choices for yourself and your family, with the knowledge that all choices have consequences that you must live with. You also learn to put things in perspective – like being able to go to community college is better than not being able to go to college at all.

Everyone’s demons are different, but in the end, the role that Vinny place for both William and Beau is someone that has enough empathy to listen. That allows both men to face the hard parts of life, and be able to move forward to being a better person because of their past, not despite it. In 1979 most didn’t want to listen to those that saw horrors in Vietnam, and in 2016 most don’t want to acknowledge the dark possibilities in life.

This story was so well written that it was not hard to jump between the timelines. The interweaving of the stories is what makes it just so poignant – even though each man had different things happening in their lives at 18, the hope for the future and the realization of what that really means is difficult. As I watch my own son at 18, this has given me another layer of understanding to what it is he is grappling with. I wholeheartedly recommend reading this. 

African Experience, book-review, books, literature, read around the world, reading

Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

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by Shehan Karunatilaka

Maali Almedia introduces himself with what should be on his business card:  Photographer, Gambler, Slut. He awakes to find himself in what seems to be a government office. He isn’t sure he if he is dreaming or awake because of the “silly pills” he had taken the night before. He slowly comes to realize that he is dead – murdered. Around him are lines and chaos as people try to figure out where they are and what comes next. He is faced with a dead political activist, who is to help him prepare to go “into the light” after having seven moons (days) to come to grips with this and prepare himself. He is also pursued by a slain member of the JVP (communist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna’s group) that is seeking to gather an army to exact revenge on those that killed them and thousands of innocents.

Through eavesdropping and memory, we learn of Maali’s history, of the country’s history, and the history of people he knew. He roams through the rooms where his friends and his enemies are looking to find him. Along the way he also meets some that he photographed when they were dead.  We learn of the atrocities he witnessed and documented. He decides it is time to show the reality of what he has seen now that he is dead. To do this, Maali makes pacts with The Crow Man, a medium, to give information to Jaki, his best friend, to find his photos. You also meet DD, Jaki’s brother and Maali’s lover, and their father, a minister in the government. Other players are leaders of waring factions across the spectrum: Army, Tamil, LTTE, arms dealers from Israel, CIA and CNTRE from Canada and Europe. Everyone has a hidden agenda, and if you get in someone’s way you end up dead. We follow those sent to get rid of the bodies, too.

In the end, Maali must come to a decision – what did his life stand for and how does he want to move forward. You need to read to the end to see if he goes to the light or not, and to discover what he finds his role is in this life. I can tell you, however, that people end up where they are supposed to be. 

Very well written. I was surprised how much this story captured me. Going back and forth from the in between and life, as well as to memory, worked seamlessly. You felt the confusion, and the despair, and the absurdity, as well as the relief when things are finished, even if they didn’t work out the way it was hoped. There is always time to do better. Not an easy story, but I am glad I read it.