Read The World - Zambia - Don't Let's Go To The Dogs Tonight

 Book: Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight

Author: Alexandra Fuller

Pages: 311

Book takes place in the country: YES

Author is from the country: No but she lived there for a time

I have visited: NO

This is my 14th read for the year

Here is what Amazon said:

Though it is a diary of an unruly life in an often inhospitable place, Don't Let Go to the Dogs Tonight is suffused with Fuller's endearing ability to find laughter, even when there is little to celebrate.  Fuller's debut is unsentimental and unflinching but always captivating.  In wry and sometimes hilarious prose, she stares down disaster and looks back with rage and love at the life of an extraordinary family in an extraordinary time.

From 1972 to 1990, Alexandra Fuller - know to friends and family as Bobo - grew up on several farms in southern and central Africa.  Her father joined up on the side of the white government in the civil war, and was often away fighting against the powerful black guerilla factions.  Bobo's mother taught her to be resillient and instilled withint her a love of storytelling.  This book shows Fuller's endearing ability to find laughter, even when there is little to celebrate.  

This was a good book.  It has a humorous undertone, which is always welcome.  The author does a good job describing the scenese around her to give the reader a good picture of Zambia.  She shows us her life in a non-political, no excuses kind of way that is always refreshing.  Good read.

Stars: 4

Read The World - Tunisia - Talismano

 Book: Talismano   

Author: Abdelwahab Meddeb

Pages: 262

Book takes place in the country: YES

Author is from the country: YES

I have visited: NO

This is my 13th read for the year

Here is what Amazon says about this book: 

Talismano is a novelistic exploration of writing seen as a hallucinatory journey through half-remembered, half-imagined cities - in particular, the city of Tunis, both as it is now, and as it once was.  Walking and writing,journey and journal, mirror one another to produce a calligraphic, magical work: a palimpsest of various languages and cultures, highlighting Abdelwahab Meddeb's beguiling mastery of both the Western and Islamic traditions.  Meddeb's journey is first and foremost a sensual one, almost decadent, where the narrator luxuriates in the Tunis of his memories  and intercuts these impressions with recollections of other cities at other times, reviving the mytical figures of Arab-Islamic legend that have faded from memory in a rapidly westernizing North Africa.  A fever dream situated on the knife-edge between competing cultures, this is a testament to the power of language.

Difficult read that I admit I skimmed through.  I got the general idea, but the stream of consciousness type books have never been attractive to me.  I love when stories are part autobiographical or at least containe memories of the author.  But this one hardly held my attention.

Stars: 2

Read The World - Mali - Bound to Violence

 Book: Bound to Violence

Author: Yambo Ouologuem

Pages: 182

Book takes place in the country: YES

Author is from the country: YES

I have visited: NO

This is my 12th read for the year

From the book: (sorry - I have gotten lazy with these last read the world reviews - I am ready to move on!)

The author draws on the history and culture of the great medieval empire of Mali.  After a brief violent fresco depicting Mali's past, the story moves into the 20th century.  The Saifs continue in power.  When the French arrive as colonizers, they unwittingly become puppets in the hands of the astute native rulers who continue to dominate by witchcraft and crime.  Scenes of violence and eroticism, of sorcery and black magic appear as natural parts of human activity.  From this sumptuous and frightful background emerges the book's main protagonist, Raymond, the son of slaves, sent to France to be educated and groomed for a political post and so to become another puppet in the hands of the Saifs.

This was a difficult read, so I am glad it was short.  As I wind down these last few countries, I really had to hunt for a book that would fit let alone interest me.  It is a very unusual book that spans a long period of time.  We made it through, and it will stay my Mali book for now.

Stars: 3

Read The World - Somalia - The World's Most Danergous Place

 Book: The World's Most Danergous Place

Author: James Fergusson

Pages: 381

Book takes place in the country: YES

Author is from the country: NO

I have visited: NO

This was my 11th read for the year

This is what Amazon has to say: 

Although the war in Afghanistan is now in its endgame, the West's struggle to eliminate the threat from Al Gaeda is far from over.  A decade after 9/11, the war on terror has entered a new phase and, it would seem, a new territory.  In early 2010, Al Qaeda operatives were reportedly "streaming" out of central Asia toward Somalia and the surrounding region.

Somalia, now home to some of the world's most dangerous terrorist, was already the word's most failed state.  Two decards of anarchy have spawned not just Islamic extremism but piracy, famine,and a seemingly endless clan-based civil war that has killed an estimated 500,000 turned millions into refugees, and caused hundreds of thousands more to flee and settle in Europe and North America.

What is now happening in Somalia directly threatens the security of the world, possibly more than any other region on earth. 

This was a pretty good book. I am always up for a good non-fiction.  It is quite detailed, and I learned quite a bit about Somalia.  It was hard to follow at times, but if you take your time, this is a worthwhile read.

Stars: 3 1/2

Read The World - Romania- The Land of Green Plums

 Book: The Land of Green Plums

Author: Herta Muller

Pages: 257

Book takes place in the country: YES

Author is from the country: YES

I have visited: NO

This is my 10th read of the year

Here is what Amazon has to say about this book: 

Set it Romania at the height of Ceauescu's reign of terror, The Land of Green Plums tells the story of a groupd of young people who leave the impoverished province for the city in search of better prospects and camaraderie.  But their hopes are ravaged, because the city, no less than the countryside, bears everywhere the mark of the dictatorship's corrosive touch. All the narrator's friends - teachers and students of vaguely dissident allegiance - betray her, do away with themselves, or both.  As they do so, we see the way the totalitarian state comes to inhabit every human realm and how everyone, even the strongest, must either bend to the oppressors or resist them and thereby perish.

Herta Muller, herself a survivor of Ceausescu's police state, speaks from intimate experience.  Scene by scene, in language at once harsh and poetic, she constructs a devastating picture of a society and a generation ruined by fear.   In simple images of hieroglyphic power - policeman filling their pockets and mouths with green plums; girls sleeping with abattoir workers for bags of offal; a docile proletariat making things no one wants - Muller anatomizes a country and its citizens and the corruption that has rotted the core of both.

This was a pretty great book.  It took me a bit to get into it - having to turn everything off and just concenrate on reading it to follow the style of writing.  However, once I did that, I found who well this book was written and what a profound story she had to tell.  I can see why it won the Nobel Prize.  If you stick to this one, you will find an incredible story about a terrible time in Romania's history.

Stars: 4

2021 Challenge: Book Found on #bookstagram - Severance

 Book: Severance

Author: Ling Ma

Pages: 304

This is my 9th read for the year

  While I wrap up my Read The World, I have started a challenge with a friend.  I have been able to plug away two books so far for that.  Yay me.

This is the story of a pandemic that kills off most of the world.  Shen Fever has taken the world by storm - originating in China - and spreading and turning people into minless "zombies" once the fever hits.  People have barely a warning when the become sick.  These zombies do not see to attack or are after people or brains, or the common zombie world tactics.  No - these zombies, once they get the fever, are stuck in whatever routine they were last doing.  Over and over again until they finally just waste away.

Candance, a millenial who was in an average job in New York City, is one of the last people to leave the city once the fever takes out most of the population.  The book goes back and forth between life before the pandemic and her life right after it takes out most of the population.  Candance tries to figure out where she fits in with her new group of survivors and what she needs to do to take care of herself.

This was an okay book.  Candace drove me crazy.  She was overly stubborn and did dumb things considering she wasn't a kid, but an adult.  And the way she was written seemed like the author was an antimasker.  Constantly complaining about them.  I mean - right now we are ALL complaining about them, but she took it to the next level.  The worst part of the book was the ending.  It just stops.  There is no wrap up.  No Epilogue for what happens to Candace slight in the future.  Nothing.  Just a really weird ending where it feels like the author just didn't know where to go so she just wraped up the story.

The only saving grace for me with this book was the zombie take.  Something different.  Not canibals for once.  Peaceful people that didn't try to kill anyone else.  A refreshing change.

I would skip this one, though.  I listened to it and it kept me entertained on my drives around, but it wasn't great.

Stars: 3

Book: Notorious RBG - The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg

 Book: Notorious RBG

Author: Irin Carmon

Pages: 240

This is my 8th read for the year

This book need very little explanation as a summary.  This is a story of Ruth Bader Ginsburg told through interviews from her collegues, friends, family, law clerks, and even from RBG herself.  Written and published before the 2016 election, it brings up through her whole life - childhood to her years on the surpreme court, painting a picture of the life of the woman who made it her mission to fight for equality.

I listened to this book as I ran errands this last week.  I have the latest RBG book on my shelf, but was curious about this one as well.  Knowing that it stopped before Trump took office (and wondering if she knew what was coming if she would have retired so that Obama could have put another liberal judge on the bench) I was curious to get an introduction to the life of this pistol of a woman.  Reading about her life - even in this short form that really does just gloss over what she accomplished - made me anxious to read the more recent book about her.  She was a powerhouse.  She paved the way for women and we have a lot to thank her (and those around her) for.  

Check this one out.

Stars: 4