Book Review: Little Princes by Conor Grennan

Title: Little Princes: One Man's Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal
Author: Conor Grennan
Hardcover: 304 pages
Publisher: William Morrow (January 25, 2011)
Genre: travel, memoir
Source: Publisher
Objective rating: 5/5


Comments: I didn't expect to be so moved by this book, a story of a young man's trip in 2004 to volunteer in Nepal at a home for orphaned children. He discovers that many Nepalese children were being taken from their impoverished families and villages by child traffickers promising to take care of and educate the children. Instead, the children are kept in houses, neglected, some  half starved, some sold into wealthier Nepalese homes as child slaves. The lucky children rescued from this situation land up in orphanages like The Little Princes Children's Home,  run by international organizations.

Conor becomes so close to the "orphans" where he volunteers, The Little Princes Children's home, that he returns to Nepal after his first stint is over, to volunteer a second time and to found his own home for children under his new organization, Next Generation Nepal (NGN). He is helped by a French volunteer, Farid.

The book is a heart-warming account of Conor's work in Nepal, his relationship with the children in the home, little bundles of energy who are full of humor and laughter. When Conor finds seven starving children in Katmandu who had been taken from their remote mountain villages and just about abandoned into poverty by child traffickers, he arranges for them to be moved to one of the children's homes run by an international organization, ISIS. The children disappear before they can be rescued, however, and Conor vows to find them again. Those seven found children form the core of Conor's new children's home.

A close relationship develops between Conor and Liz, a woman and international volunteer whom he meets online and who encourages and advises him through the frustrations of finding the missing children and traveling to remote villages to locate any relatives of the children living at the Little Princes Home.

"The village I had been looking for was somewhere up the mountain...if we could even find the trail in the pitch-dark. My two porters and I had been walking for thirteen hours straight. Winter at night in the mountains of northwestern Nepal is bitterly cold, and we had no shelter." (from Little Princes).

There are about 15 pages of color photographs included in the book, of the children, Mount Everest Base Camp where Conor visited, the parents in the village of Humla holding pictures of their "lost" children, and children in their school uniforms posing for the camera.

Rating: I gave this a 5/5 star rating, without reservation. I was in tears several times reading this book, moved by Conor's compassion and sacrifice, and his love for the children. A must read for those interested in South Asia, Nepal, the plight of children in these areas, and even for curious armchair travelers.

The author lives in Connecticut with his wife and son and does fundraising for his Next Generation Nepal organization. Visit http://www.nextgenerationnepal.org/

© Harvee Lau 2011

Shift: 13 Exercises to Make You Who You Want to Be

Teaser Tuesdays asks you to choose two sentences at random from your current read. Identify the author and title for readers.


Shift; 13 Exercises to Make You Who You Want to Be
by Takumi Yamazaki
Hardcover: 208 pages
Publisher: One Peace Books (March 1, 2011)
Language: English
Genre: motivational, self-help
Objective rating: 4.5/5
 
Let yourself dream a crazy dream.
Everything can change in an instant.

Grant your wish.

From the Epilogue:

"Don't trick yourself into thinking that you don't have the power to make your dreams come true. Remember that the goal comes first and the method comes later. You can make a shift at any time."

Comments: This book actually works. I read the book in one sitting, did all the exercises, and got up out of my chair, made a phone call, and set the ball rolling on a project I really wanted to begin. I feel I have to hang on to this book so that I can re-do some of the exercises just in case my motivation decides to flag or falter down the road.

Sounds too easy to be true? Your own motivation is the key, according to the author, who gives exercises to get you writing, and thinking, and writing down your dreams, problems you see, people you would ask for help, etc.

From the publisher: Author Takumi Yamazaki is a best selling author in Japan. He has authored ten successful titles in the catefory of business which have sold a cum8ulative total of over 800,000 copies. A self-made millionaire, Takami travels around the world giving seminars on motivation. He presently lives in Tokyo, Japan.

Thanks to The Cadence Group for a review copy of this book.

See Book Review Party Wednesday for more book reviews on Cym Lowell's site.

Sunday Salon: Mysteries, Poetry, and a Name Change

Welcome to the Sunday Salon. Click on the logo to join in!

I've decided to change back again to my other blog name, Book Dilettante. I think the Bird Dog in my name confused people who thought my blog was about hunting! So it's back to Book Dilettante, which was my second choice for a long time. The blog address is now http://bookdilettante.blogspot.com

Finally was able to get to the library after more weekend snow. Some of the books I had reserved had been sent back, so I re-requested them and borrowed others. Among those I asked for is Death of a Chimney Sweep (Hamish Macbeth) by M.C. Beaton, a cozy mystery that came out this month.  I also borrowed a book of poems by Charles Simic,  Sixty Poems. Simic, whom I have never read,  is the 15th Poet Laureate of the U.S. Looking forward to it.

Book reviews last week:
Zero Day
Cat Sitter among the Pigeons
Radio Shangri-La
Red Jade

I joined the Chinese Literature Challenge 2011 and hope to read a few new books for this. Fresh Ink Books has a nice list of books to recommend. I also just joined the Immigrant Stories 2011 Challenge at Books in the City. Click on the button on the left to join.

I'll be going swimming this afternoon (indoors, of course) and watching the Oscars tonight, in between reading my newly borrowed books and some that came by mail.

What have you been doing this past week? Have any of your plans been disrupted by the snow?

Book Review: Red Jade: a Detective Jack Yu Investigation

Red Jade: A Detective Jack Yu Investigation
Author: Henry Chang
Hardcover: 256 pages
Publisher: Soho Crime; 1 edition (November 1, 2010)
Genre: crime fiction, PI, mystery
Setting: NYC, Seattle
Source: Library
Rating: 4/5

Comments: Interesting mystery that gets the reader into the world of Chinatown tongs and the criminal underworld they run. In Red Jade, The bodies of a man and his wife are discovered in a case that looks like a murder-suicide. Detective Jack Yu had been transferred from working in Chinatown, but the family of the victims asked for him to be recalled to do the investigation.

Pretty soon, Jack is also searching for a Hong Kong woman who disappears from Chinatown, escaping from the Chinese underworld with a stash of gold coins and a "fistful" of diamonds. She is one of the more intriguing characters in the novel. She is resourceful about hiding from the criminal elements hunting her down as she escapes from New York to Seattle, trying not to stand out or be discovered by the tongs.

"She had a lot of different jewelry. I remembered, but she always wore a jade charm. Hanging off her wrist. It was white and gray, with pa kua, Taoist, designs on it. Round, like a coin, a nickel." (p. 55)

Detective Yu takes us through Chinatowns in New York and Seattle - pawn shops, jewelers, restaurants, temples, while introducing the Cantonese and Toisanese dialects.

Publisher's description: Two bodies are discovered at an address on the Bloody Angle, Chinatown's historic Tong battleground. NYPD Detective Jack Yu's investigation takes him across the country to another Chinatown, this one in Seattle, in pursuit of a cold-blooded Chinese American gangster and a mysterious Hong Kong femme fatale

The Chinese cop, Tsai remembered, the American-born Chinese, the jook sing, empty piece of bamboo. They (the defense lawyers) would dredge up his tainted career, his Chinatown misadventures, and destroy his credibility. (p. 56)

About the author: Henry Chang was born and raised in New York's Chinatown, where he still lives. He is a graduate of Pratt Institute and CCNY. He is the author of Chinatown Beat and Year of the Dog, also in the Detective Jack Yu series.

Challenges: Immigrant Stories Challenge 2011, Mysery and Suspense Reading Challenge 2011, Chinese Literature Challenge 2011

Book Review: Radio Shangri-La by Lisa Napoli

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Radio Shangri-La: What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth
Author: Lisa Napoli
Hardcover: 304 pages
Publisher: Crown (February 8, 2011)
Genre: Travel, memoir
Source: TLC book promotion review copy
Objective rating: 4/5

Comments: A combination of travel in Bhutan, history, and memoir, Lisa Napoli's book, Radio Shangri-La, describes not only the author's life and how her several trips to Bhutan have affected her personally, but also gives a detailed history of the country, its politics, religion, customs, and people. Bhutan is a land-locked country in South Asia, bordered on the east, west and south by India and on the north by China. It's set spectacularly at the east end of the Himalayas.

Isolated from the rest of the world by decree, Bhutan requires that tourists pay a tax of $250 per day to stay in the country. The result is a country still pristine, non commercial, even though it is becoming more modernized, politically and economically. Bhutan measures  progress not in terms of economic advancement, however, but in levels of happiness - the Gross National Happiness index.

The book: A former radio journalist in Los Angeles, Lisa Napoli decides to leave her disappointing life behind and travel to the other side of the globe to help start Bhutan’s first youth-oriented radio station, Kuzoo FM. She finds fulfillment in her work there and a new acceptance of herself while living in the stark beauty of this country nestled in the Himalayas

The work Lisa does to help develop Kuzoo FM puts her in close contact with the young people, the local community, as well as the small group of foreigners in Bhutan, and she gives some interesting accounts of her contacts. In the U.S., in between trips to Bhutan, she meets Bhutanese living and working in the U.S. She also witnesses the coming of democracy to the Kingdom and the beginning of modernization. The hefty daily tax for tourists still stays, however, to prevent an overload of tourists that the still-developing country can't yet handle.

When Lisa invites one of the young Kuzoo announcers to visit her radio station in the U.S., I could understand when she became frantic when the adventurous girl wanted to stay beyond the time set by her visa. Everything turned out okay in the end, however.

For those who enjoy memoirs and travel books, following Lisa's experiences in the little known Asian country of Bhutan in Radio Shangri-La will be more than rewarding.


Click here for an Excerpt

Lisa's website: Lisa Napoli and blog: Everything Bhutan.
Radio Shangri-La Book Drive: Books to Bhutan

From TLC: Lisa will talk to book clubs by speaker phone or Skype, or in person if they are in the Los Angeles area (she claims she will even bring a real live Bhutanese person to your meeting if you're in LA!). Her book is the featured prize in the TLC Book Club of the Month Contest in February:
http://tlcbooktours.com/2011/02/book-club-of-the-month-contest-for-february-2011/


Catch all the reviews of the book at the following stops: http://tlcbooktours.com/

Thanks to Lisa at TLC Book Tours for this book tour opportunity.

© Harvee Lau 2011

Chinese Literature Challenge 2011

I discovered the Chinese Literature Challenge from Nancy O's blog at The Year in Books and am participating. Here are some of the rules, but you can click on the title to reach the site in order to sign up.

The challenge starts and ends on Chinese New Year, February 3, 2011 to January 23, 2012. You can however join in anytime. Books written by a Chinese or Chinese-American author or books about China (incl. Hongkong and Macau) or Taiwan are the target. Read at least one book and write a review about it. If you don't have a blog, it's also fine to post your review on Goodreads or Librarything.

Here are my books so far; click on title for the review
1. Red Jade by Henry Chang, a mystery
2.Dragon Chica by May-Lee Chai

Book Review: Cat Sitter among the Pigeons by Blaize Clement

Title: Cat Sitter Among the Pigeons: A Dixie Hemingway Mystery
Author: Blaize Clement
Publisher: Minotaur Books (January 4, 2011)
Genre: pet sitter mystery, cozy
Source: Library
Rating: 4/5

The men in the backseat released their hold on me. One of them turned his head toward me and spoke through the slit in his mask.
"I guess we made a mistake." He sounded hopeful, as if he thought I might forget the whole thing.
The other one said,"Vern, what're you going to do with her?"
I wanted to know that myself. (ch. 3)

Comments: I always enjoy the pet sitter mysteries by Clement. Her character, Dixie Hemingway, lives on Siesta Key (fictional, I think) in Florida and takes care of pets twice a day, early in the morning from 4 a.m. to 10 a.m., and again in the afternoons. Her charges range from regular cats and dogs, to parrots, iguanas,  etc. You read about the different animals she feeds, walks, and grooms, in the six books in the series. Dixie draws the line at snakes, however, and hands over those jobs to other pet sitters. She often comes across dead bodies (of humans) while doing her job and solves these mysteries as a great amateur sleuth. Her love interest is the detective in the town, Guidry.

Product Description:  "In the sixth installment of the mystery series, Dixie is caring for the cat of a prickly old man whose granddaughter shows up with baby in tow. Dixie desperately tries to save this young woman and her infant from murderous con-artists ready to kill in order to hold on to the millions they stole from naïve investors. The villains, though, are not run-of-the-mill criminals; they are among the socially prominent movers and shakers in Dixie’s town.

Dixie must confront her greatest fears and try to save the lives of the innocent, both two-legged and four."

About the Author: This is the sixth novel in BLAIZE CLEMENT’s Dixie Hemingway mystery series. The author lives in Sarasota, Florida.