I had heard about Greg in the same way so many people did by reading Parade Magazine years ago.
I knew that this book and his story would be good, but I was enthralled the whole time I was reading it. It is well written and fast-paced.
Greg Mortenson has made a difference that is huge and lasting. Where no one else would go, he went and kept his promises against so many odds.
I don’t want to quote all my notes or spoil the suspense of the stories that appear on every page and that kept me reading late into the night and early morning, but here are two:
From the intro on page 3:
Former Taliban fighters renounced violence and the oppression of women after meeting Mortenson and went to work with him peacefully building schools for girls. He has drawn volunteers and admirers from every stratum of Pakistan’s society and from all the warring sects of Islam.
Once he was held prisoner for eight days in a remote part of Pakistan where he was not known and twice he had fatwas imposed against him.
Page 301 Greg says:
"If we truly want a legacy of peace for our children, we need to understand that this is a war that will ultimately be won with books, not with bombs."
I highly recommend this book and welcome comments from those who have already read it.
I also could not lay down Brother, I Am Dying by Edwidge Danticat which is a memoir of her life in Haiti. For eight years, she and her brother were left behind in Haiti to be raised by an uncle and aunt before being reunited with her parents in the US. The terrible dangers her uncle endured are a large part of the story. How he overcame his medical problems is important, too. I highly recommend this true story to you, also.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com//e/...
Other true and inspirational stories that were fascinating to me include:
Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring by Richard Preston is about people who love and climb the largest trees in the world and sleep in them in windstorms.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/...
The Zookeeper’s Wife by Diane Ackerman is the story of a young couple in Poland during WW II who saved many people though they most often could not save their zoo animals. It is an incredible story of courage.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/...
Other true WW II and survivor’s stories that I have read and could not lay down:
All But My Life and the sequel The Hours After by Gerda Weissman Klein
And Yet, I Am Here by Halina Nelken
Under a Cruel Star by Hedy Margoulis Kovaly
Twentieth Train by Schreiber
Tell Me Another Morning by Zdena Berger
The Seamstress by Sarah Tuvel Bernstein
Sala’s Gift by Ann Kirschner
Nazi Officer’s Wife by Edith Beer
I Have Lived a Thousand Years by Livia Bitton-Jackson
and the sequel My Bridges of Hope
Defying Hitler by Sebastian Haffner, is a memoir of Germany 1914-1934 (39). He escaped as well as his wife and was interned in England until he was released just in time for the blitz of London.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/...
More true stories I have read and could not lay down:
Zoya’s Story: An Afghan Woman's Struggle for Freedom by Zoya with Follain and Cristofare
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/...
Synopsis
Though she is only twenty-three, Zoya has witnessed and endured more tragedy and terror than most people experience in a lifetime. Born in a land ravaged by war, she was robbed of her parents when they were murdered by Muslim fundamentalists. Devastated, she fled Kabul with her grandmother and started a new life in exile in Pakistan. She joined the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), an organization that challenged the crushing edicts of the Taliban government, and she took destiny into her own hands, joining a dangerous, clandestine war to save her nation.
What Is the What by Dave Eggers is a fictional memoir of the Lost Boys of the Sudan and Valentino Achak Deng.
It may be listed as fictional, but it rings true. Again, it was a book I could not lay down and when I had to do that, I came back to it as soon as possible. It was gripping and authentic and teaches us so much.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/...
Synopsis
In a heartrending and astonishing novel, Eggers illuminates the history of the civil war in Sudan through the eyes of Valentino Achak Deng, a refugee now living in the United States. We follow his life as he's driven from his home as a boy and walks, with thousands of orphans, to Ethiopia, where he finds safety — for a time. Valentino's travels, truly Biblical in scope, bring him in contact with government soldiers, janjaweed-like militias, liberation rebels, hyenas and lions, disease and starvation — and a string of unexpected romances.
Ultimately, Valentino finds safety in Kenya and, just after the millennium, is finally resettled in the United States, from where this novel is narrated. In this book, written with expansive humanity and surprising humor, we come to understand the nature of the conflicts in Sudan, the refugee experience in America, the dreams of the Dinka people, and the challenge one indomitable man faces in a world collapsing around him.
The War I Always Wanted: The Illusion of Glory and the Reality of War: A Screaming Eagle in Afghanistan and Iraq by Brandon Friedman
Our Brandon, of course...and so honest...
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/...
Biography
Brandon Friedman served as an infantry platoon leader and company executive officer with the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division. He participated in both Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan and in the invasion of Iraq and the subsequent insurgency.
Voyager by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager with Phil Patton
In another world a long time ago, two people climbed into a tiny unsafe plane and flew non-stop around the world and landed with a teaspoon of gas left. It is a heart-stopping story from the experimental flights to the very end.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/... (out of stock, but copies are in the used book section of BN)
...More than half the book focuses on the several years before the flight, which Jeana and Dick, with a growing legion of professional and volunteer helpers, spent designing, building, testing and testing again (dangerously) their ultra-light, catamaran-shaped craft with its tiny ``horizontal telephone booth'' cockpit.
The intrepid pair, who ``didn't know what we were getting ourselves into,'' met at an airshow, he a Vietnam flier of 105 missions, she both a pilot and a horse-trainer. They shared the dream of the flight, fell in love, married and went on to see their know-how and courage tested almost beyond endurance in the voyage that more than once nearly ended in disaster.
Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II by Robert Kurson
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/...
Sewing Circles of Herat: A Personal Voyage Through Afghanistan by Christina Lamb
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/...
A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History's Greatest Traveler by Jason Roberts about James Holman who was blind, but traveled the world.
http://www.jasonroberts.net/...
Prince of Marshes: And Other Occupational Hazards of a Year in Iraq by Rory Stewart
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/...
Places In Between by Stewart (Afghanistan)
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/...
Prince Borghese’s Trail or Peking to Paris: 10,000 Miles over Two Continents, Four Deserts and the Roof of the World in the Peking to Paris Motor Challenge by Genevieve Obert
This is the true story of a thrilling and dangerous car race.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/... (used books has copies)
A Pirate of Exquisite Mind is the bio of William Dampier by Diana and Michael Preston.
wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/...
My Forbidden Face: Growing up under the Taliban: A Young Woman's Story by Latifa
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/...
The Man Who Would Be King: The First American in Afghanistan by Ben McIntyre
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/...
Red River by Lalita Tademy The story is called a fictional memoir, but it is based on her family's memories and has newspaper clippings and other documents as well as photos.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/...
Gettysburg by Stephen Sears
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/...
and anything by Feynman, Hickam, and Bryson
The above list are true stories, but you are welcome to mention fiction stories as well that you could not lay down and of course we always discuss what we are reading or hoping to read.
Other articles and diaries:
Polish Holocaust hero dies at age 98
Irena Sendler, social worker who saved 2,500 Jewish children from Holocaust, dies at age 98
MONIKA SCISLOWSKA
AP News
May 12, 2008 11:35 EST
http://www.rawstory.com/...
Some Poems for the Saturday Night Club
by Yosef 52
http://www.dailykos.com/...
plf515 has a wonderful book diary on Fridays and all day.
The Heart Sutra and The Garden of Earthly Delights
by justiceputnam
Sat May 03, 2008 at 01:56:45 AM EDT
http://www.dailykos.com/...
A Climaticide Fable
by JohnnyRook
http://www.dailykos.com/...
sarahnity’s list of DKos authors...has grown so much that she has her own diary on Tuesdays.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
sarahnity says:
It turns out that we have quite a few authors hanging out here who have published books in the real world. A while ago, I started keeping a list of books by Kossacks, former Kossacks and Kossacks-once-removed. I was posting it each week to the diary series What Are You Reading and Bookflurries, but the list has grown long enough, that I've decided to turn it into a diary and post it as a weekly series on Tuesday evenings.
Not all Kossack authors may wish to lose their anonymity, so I am only including the author's UID if he has outed herself here (gender confusion intended). If you'd like to be included on the list, or if you know of an author who is left off, please leave a comment or email me.
