Sunday Salon: Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all of you wonderful moms!
Enjoy the day, relax, read a good book;
hope you don't lift a finger today, and be pampered!

The Friday 56: One Red Bastard by Ed Lin

Welcome to The Friday 56  hosted by Freda's Voice

Rules:*Grab a book, any book.
*Turn to page 56.
*Find any sentence (or a few) that grabs you.
*Post it.
*Add your (url) post to the Friday 56 Linky.  It's that simple.

Here's a page 56 quote from my current read:

"The later editions of the Chinese newspapers reported Mr. Chen's death. The Taiwan-based paper declared that Communist agents had gotten to him. The Hong Kong-based rag lamented how unsafe Chinatown had become ever since those lowlifes from Fujian province started coming into the country."

Title:One Red Bastard: A Mystery by Ed Lin
Minotaur Books; April 24, 2012

Book Review: Lulu in the Sky by Loung Ung

Title: Lulu in the Sky: A Daughter of Cambodia Finds Love, Healing and Double Happiness by Loung Ung
Published April 17, 2012; HarperCollins paperback
Rating: 5/5

Lulu in the Sky is the third book in a trilogy memoir by Loung Ung, a refugee from war torn Cambodia who came to the U.S. as a child with her oldest brother and his wife, settling in Vermont. Now an adult who is dedicated to Cambodia's future and working to ban landmines all over the world, she finally married her college sweetheart Mark. This happened after many years of putting off her commitment to personal happiness - to deal with the memory of her parents' and sisters' death in Cambodia during the war and leaving behind part of her family when she left Cambodia.

These experiences are the topic of the author's two previous memoirs, First They Killed My Father and Lucky Child. The two books detail the excesses of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, when millions of Cambodians were killed or executed, including Loung's parents and tells about the author's escape and arrival in America. In Lulu in the Sky, Loung tells us how she came to be reconciled with the past, to live in the present and continue into the future.

I don't need anyone. Even as I whispered this to myself, I knew I was lying.
"Why do you want to be with me when I'm such a mess?" I asked.
"Because you're brave and passionate and tender; you're a child and a wise woman."
"But I'm broken..."
"You're not broken. Not to me. Never to me."
Mark's kindness and compassion were what drew me to him in the beginning of our relationship. (ch. 18)

Loung exorcises the ghosts that haunt her by talking to a therapist, by writing about her experiences, and becoming an activist for international justice. She eventually finds happiness in her work and in her marriage to Mark.

For nine months, I revisited my childhood in Cambodia. With Mark and my friends at my side, I poured my love, anger, and hate into the computer. And in the midst of this writing, I traveled back and forth to Cambodia as a spokesperson for VVAF, leading delegations of supporters and public figures to tour our centers. (ch. 19)

The author continues to give lectures around the country and to talk to book clubs and other groups about her experiences and her international work. Her memoir is very moving. The detail in her books and her extraordinary memory, her clear writing, makes this book and the first two a must for those who know about the brutal history of Cambodia and for those who want to know more.

Loung Ung is an author, lecturer, and activist. She has advocated for equality, human rights, and justice in her native land and world wide for more than fifteen years. Ung lives in Cleveland, Ohio with her husband.

For other tour stops and reviews of this book, visit Lulu in the Sky Book Tour, sponsored by TLC Book Tours.

Thanks to TLC and the author, publisher, for a complimentary review copy of this book. 

A Place of Secrets by Rachel Hore

Opening sentences of a book can give a taste of the writer's style, a sense of the story. Here are the beginning sentences for A Place of Secrets.

The night before it begins, Jude has the dream again.She is stumbling through a dark forest, lost and crying for her mother. She always wakes before the end so she never knows whether she finds her, but it is very vivid. She feels the loamy earth, hears twigs crack under her feet and smells the rich, woody fragrances that are always strongest at night, when the trees are breathing. It's chilly. Brambles catch at her hair. And the panic, the despair, they're real enough as she claws her way to consciousness; she scrabbles for the light switch and lies waiting for her sobbing breaths and racing heart to slow.

Title: A Place of Secrets: A Novel by Rachel Hore
Paperback: 400 pages; Holt Paperbacks; January 31, 2012
Publisher's description:

An historical mystery in the tradition of Kate Morton. 

Auction house appraiser Jude leaves London for her dream job at Starbrough Hall, an estate in the countryside, examining and pricing the manuscripts and instruments of an eighteenth-century astronomer. She is welcomed by Chantal Wickham and Jude feels close to the old woman at once: they have both lost their husbands. Hard times have forced the Wickham family to sell the astronomer's work, their land and with it, the timeworn tower that lies nearby. The tower was built as an observatory for astronomer Anthony Wickham and his daughter Esther, and it served as the setting for their most incredible discoveries.

Though Jude is far away from her life in London, her arrival at Starbrough Hall brings a host of childhood memories. She meets Euan, a famed writer and naturalist who lives in the gamekeeper's cottage at the foot of the tower, where Jude's grandfather once lived. And a nightmare begins to haunt her six-year-old niece, the same nightmare Jude herself had years ago. Is it possible that the dreams are passed down from one generation to the next? What secrets does the tower hold? And will Jude unearth them before it's too late?

Rachel Hore is the author of novels including The Glass Painter's Daughter and The Memory Garden. She worked in London publishing before moving to Norwich, where she teaches publishing at the University of East Anglia. She is married to the writer D. J. Taylor.

Tuesday Teaser: Roam: A Novel with Music by Alan Lazar

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme hosted by MizB; choose sentences at random from your current read. Identify the author and title for readers.

"Nelson slept fitfully. He woke up shivering several times, but even the cool night did not keep him from falling asleep again soon. The events of the day had exhausted the small animal. He had walked and run for hours, and he had been bombarded by a hundred stimuli he had never felt before. (ch. 11)

Title:Roam: A Novel with Music by Alan Lazar
Hardcover, November 1, 2011; Atria Books

Publisher's description:They say you never forget your first love . . .
Born under a sparkling crescent moon, Nelson is a bright-eyed, inquisitive half beagle, half poodle. He lives with Katey and Don, newlyweds whose marriage is straining under the pressures of domesticity, but Katey’s devotion to Nelson buoys the pup even as he worries his home may be falling apart.

But there are few things Nelson likes better than to follow a scent, and one day he follows his nose and gets lost . . . very lost. Though he searches frantically for Katey—and she for him—Nelson can’t seem to find his way home, and he soon realizes that if he’s ever to see his great love again, he must make his way on his own and try to survive in the wild.

Over the course of eight years, the book follows Nelson as he crosses the country searching for his family. For a time he rides shotgun with a truck driver named Thatcher, then he lives in the woods with a pack of wolves. A terrible accident takes his hind leg, but Nelson’s strength and longing to find Katey keep him alive. Escaping death in a shelter, Nelson grows into an old dog with a cynical eye and a world-weary demeanor, but underneath it all, a fearless and courageous spirit. After all, he believes that one day he’ll make it home . . . and maybe, just maybe, he will. . . .

Much more than the story of one dog’s incredible journey, this is a deeply moving story of survival and enduring love, which once again confirms the unbreakable bond between humans and their best friends. In the tradition of The Art of Racing in the Rain and The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, Roam is an unforgettable tale of love lost and found, the trials that test families, and an affirmation that no matter how far or how long you may travel, there’s always a place you can call home.

I received this book as a complimentary review copy.

Book Review: In My Father's Country: An Afghan Woman Defies Her Fate

Title: In My Father's Country: An Afghan Woman Defies Her Fate
Author: Saima Wahab
Hardcover, 352 pages; Crown Publishers
Published: April 23, 2012
Rating: 5/5

• About the book: This is the story of a 15-year-old Afghani girl who migrates to Portland, Oregon in the 1980s with her brothers, in the care of her traditional Pashtun uncles. Saima came from a tribe in Afghanistan with very strict rules regarding family and women's behavior. She rebelled against her uncles as she grew older, and after college at age 23, left their home to strike out on her own.
• 
  
• In 2004, she signed up with a defense contractor as an interpreter in Afghanistan, and ever since has worked with the U.S. Armed Forces as the first female Pashtun-English interpreter, and later as a research consultant to the U.S. army in Afghanistan. Her book covers two main areas: her personal life and struggles to integrate into U.S. society as an immigrant, and her fight for her individual freedom as a woman connected by family to a traditional tribal society. The other main area, and the one which takes up most of the book, is her commitment to better understanding and communication between the U.S. forces in Afghanistan and the people of Afghanistan.
• 
  
Saima's father was taken away from the village by the KGB and killed when she was age three. In 1979 she left Afghanistan at age six when the Russians invaded, and since coming to the U.S. at age 15, has returned to Afghanistan many times as an interpreter for the U.S. Armed Forces and in 2007 as research manager of the army's Human Terrain Team. Her job was to help the military tackle the language barrier and lack of knowledge of the region's history and to give crucial cultural recommendations. During her many trips to Afghanistan, she also reconnected with her extended family in her mother's village.

Comments: I was amazed by Saima's bravery in breaking away from her uncles in Portland and becoming a virtual outcast from her family.  Her unique gift and accomplishment as a fluent Pashtun-English translator made her valuable as an interpreter and cultural advisor. This has given her what she most wanted ever since childhood -  freedom and independence as a woman in both her Afghani and American worlds, and she fights still to improve the lives of restricted Afghani women. 

The author talks about another important goal for working in Afghanistan. She wanted to find out what it was about the Afghanis that made her father give up his life for them. Another amazing thing about this book was how her writing made everything clear and easy to understand - Saima's personal life and goals, the differences in her ethnic culture and Western culture, the needs of the U.S. Armed Forces in Afghanistan to work successfully with the Afghanis. A compelling book on several levels, I recommend it to those interested in the fight of women in traditional societies for a better life and individual freedom and for those interested in the culture and politics of Aghanistan.

 
SAIMA WAHAB is Afghan-born, fled to Pakistan as a refugee, and moved to the United States as a teenager. She is one of the only Pashtun-English female translators in the world and, among other consequent roles, has returned to Afghanistan to work as a cultural adviser with the U.S. Army. A former resident of Portland, OR, Saima now lives in the Washington D.C. area.

For a list of all the book tour stops sponsored by TLC Book Tours, and other reviews of the book, visit TLC Book Tours: In My Father's Country blog tour.

Thanks to TLC, the author, and the publisher for a complimentary review copy of the book.

Saturday Snapshot No. 1

A swan on the river running through Stratford, Ontario, the home of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada. We attend a play or two at the festival almost every year on our way to or from Toronto. This picture was taken last year.

Visit Alyce at At Home With Books to join in the Saturday Snapshot and post your picture on the linky there.