Cammykitty - This is the World, You're welcome here

I'm looking for a picture of me still. I've been on librarything for quite a while, usually in the category challenge but lately life has been moving really fast. I still want librarything as a record of my reads but honestly, I can't keep up with all the threads, all the suggestions, that happen here. So I've moved to the Quiet Corner. I hope to get to know you, but please forgive me if I disappear for awhile or if I don't return visits much.

About me: dogs! Irish Water Spaniels! I have Chuck now who is a youngin' and I'm not so much anymore. He's not very well trained! But we love the crazy boi.

Work life: I work at a food co-op and also at a middle school as an assistant teacher, mostly working with kids with Autism.

I used to want to be a writer. I finished a trunk novel and several smaller things but don't have it in me to market it. Besides, there are so many books already! I think I enjoy reading them more than writing them, at least now I do.

Reading around the World



I've been working on reading a book from every country in the world for several years now. I've got about 105 countries down, which is about 1/3 I think. The rule is the author has to be born in that country. Other than that, the book can be about anything. Especially lately, I've realized this reading has opened up my empathy to other parts of the world. So many governments out of step with what many of their citizens want.

This link will take you to my current globe
https://cmoreira.net/visited-countries-map/?vcsprojection=flat&vcstitle=&amp...

1. Wild Poppies by Haya Saleh Jordan
2. A Land Without Jasmine by Wajdi al-Ahdal Yeman
3. So Long a Letter by Mariama Ba Senegal
4. The Book of Chameleons by JoseEduardo A gualusa Angola
5. Changes: A Love Story by Ama Ata Aidoo Ghana
6. I who have never known men by Jacqueline Harpman Belgium
7. Amanat: Women's writing from Kazakhstan edited by Zaure Batayeva
8. The Epic of Askia Mohammed Niger
9. Doom 94 by Janis Jonevs translator is Kaija Straumanis Latvia
10. Bourbon Island 1730 by Appollo and Lewis Trondheim Reunion
11. Hope and other dangerous pursuits by Laila Lalami Morocco
12. Tales of the Comoros by Hichamou Prince Comorros Islands .
13. So Distant from my Life by Monique Ilboudo Burkina Faso
14. The Man who Spoke Snakish by Andrus Kivirahk Estonia
Kintu seems to have not been recorded/reviewed which is sad, because it is one of my favorites and I keep thinking about it Uganda
15. The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunitalaka Sri Lanka
16. Death of the Snake Catcher by Ak Welsapar Turkmenistan
17. The Purple Violet of Oshaantu by Neshani Andreas Namibia
18. The Dragons The Giant The Women by Wayetu Moore Liberia
19. The Frangipani Tree Mystery by Ovidia Yu Singapore
20. Co-Wives, Co-Widows by Adrienne Yabouza Central African Republic
21. Mina Among the Shadows by Edem Awumey Togo
22. The Lute and the Scars by Danilo Kis Serbia
23. To Essay by Rusana Bardarska Bulgaria
24. Attitude 13: A Daughter of Guam's Collection of Short Stories by Tanya Chargualaf Taimanglo Guam
25. Edo's Souls by Stella Gaitano South Sudan
26. The Wedding of Zein by Tayeb Salih Sudan
27. Within The Realm of Happiness by Kinley Dorji Bhutan
28. The Sand Fish by Maha Gargash United Arab Emirates

Women



1. So Long a Letter by Mariama Ba
2. Changes: A Love Story by Ama Ata Aidoo
3. A Mercy by Toni Morrison
4. The Purple Violet of Oshaantu by Neshani Andreas
5. The Soul of a Woman by Isabel Allende
6. Edo's Souls by Stella Gaitano
7. The Othered Woman: How white feminism harms muslim women

Terry Pratchett (discworld) has a theory that too many books or written words in one space can alter the world. I mean alter, twisting, changing physics, creating wars or floods, etc. Hence this category, the books I already own.



Fighting Lexical Critical Mass

1. The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami
2. Alleys and Doorways by Meredith Schwartz DNF
3. Coyote Kings of the Space Age Bachelor Pad by Minister Faust dnf
4. Rosewater by Tade Thompson
5. Sisters of the Resistance by Christine Wells
6. The Case of the Felonious Faire by Drew Hayes

Discworld



35. Wintersmith
36. Making Money

Minnesota Writegeous



1. Welcome to BOY.net by Lyda Morehouse
2. Purgatory Ridge by William Kent Krueger
3. Doom 95 by Janis Jonevs translated by Minnesota's own Kaija Straumanis
4. The Dragons The Giant The Women by Wayetu Moore Liberia -- was published by Minnesota Indie Publisher, Graywolf Press

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Jordan


Wild Poppies by Haya Saleh is a tween novel set during the Syrian Civil War. It doesn't go into great details of the war, like who hates who and why, but it does enough for a tween or even an adult audience. It addresses a lot of issues people in the Middle East have faced, such as religion being used as a tool of war, restrictions on girls and women, families split apart, starvation, land mines, child soldiers. There are some violent scenes, but not anywhere close to what you might find in an adult book of a similar subject. Definitely a good read for a young person trying to understand modern civil war.

Welcome to the group!

Thanks! March-Hare, as you can see, I'm taking my time settling in.

Yemen


A Land Without Jasmine by Wajdi Al-Ahdal
You almost don't get through the first chapter. Something seems off. A Yemeni man writing a young woman's view of men? But where else are you going to find a murder mystery from Yemen, so you keep reading. Second chapter, you meet this book's Columbo, cigarette instead of cigar, but he's rumpled and asks those homey questions that trip up the suspect. You're hooked. Then the end. Wow!!!! You were wrong about the murderer, and you were even wrong about what kind of book you were reading. Wow!

Wajdi Al-Ahdal is a rare author that I will definitely read again, and I'm really surprised. I'd made a rule to look for female authors first from the Middle-East because I'd run into so many books (sometimes with female authors) from there where I couldn't get through the way women are treated. This author is different. I glanced at the translator's notes, and it mentioned that some of the scenes did not appear in the original language addition due to their sexual nature. So how long was the original? 40 pages maybe? Sexuality and its effect on the community was a major theme of the book. I also learned that Wajdi Al-Ahdal has been exiled from Yemen because of one of his books. Now that doesn't happen to bad writers. It happened because he has a unique power of observation and an understanding of how things work as well as a will to question it. Next time, I'll know to trust this author beyond 10 pages.

Senegal



So Long a Letter by Mariama Ba is a fictional letter between two women, one has just lost her husband to death and the other has left her husband. This short novel was written in the late 70s, and shows a real break with past traditions. This is fairly described as a feminist work. Ba details throughout the letter changes that should be made to make women's lives better such as safe parks for the kids. But it isn't just a feminist manifesto. The women's problems with polygamy are juicy enough to keep the pages turning.

Angola



The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa is narrated by a man reincarnated as a gecko. He lives with an albino whose job is to invent genealogies for important people (politicians etc) who have humble origins but aspire to have an illustrious past.

Living in post-truth USA, I connected with this. It was political, sarcastic and meta all in one.

Ghana



Don't read Changes: A Love Story by Ama Ata Aidoo if you are in fact looking for a love story. It would be a spoiler if I told you what genre it really belongs in.

I can't decide if I should include this as feminist fiction or not. It takes place in a Ghana where women expect to work, they want to get an education, and they want a family. However, there are monogamous marriages and polygamous marriages. Some of the old customs are being lost as the younger generation adapts some ways of the colonizers. And of course, no one listens to advice.

I enjoyed this book and want to say I loved it, but I really didn't love it. It left me quite unsettled, but maybe in a good way?

Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett is the 35th book in a series of 41. If ya know, ya know. I've slowed down reading them because I am going to mourn when I read the last one. As for this one, it's from the YA series within the Discworld series, Tiffany Aching. I deeply regret that Terry didn't live long enough to bring up his second generation of witches.

Minnesota


I was really happy to find signed copies of Welcome to BOY.net by Lyda Morehouse at our local Science Fiction bookstore, Uncle Hugo's. Lyda has returned to her loves, Science Fiction and LGBTQ+ rights. Lucian, a human augmented to be a post-earth soldier, defies an unjust order and deserts. They go to a biohacker where they adjust their body to be female and start a career as a bounty hunter on the run. Of course, if you know Lyda, several plot threads spin out. Lucian, now Lucia, has military mates that want her back, nanoteched into a man she would no longer recognize.

Belgium



I who have never known men by Jacqueline Harpman seems to be having a social media fueled moment right now. I was on a "several months" hold to get the book from the library. A few weeks later, I got a message that they had just bought 36 more licenses for the audio book and it was now available. Insanely popular for a book that is not new.

Now what I think of it? It doesn't earn the label feminist even though it is about 40 women locked in a cage for an unknown reason that for an equally unknown reason get freed into an apocalyptic landscape. I found the main e unlikable right away and almost quit reading. She gets better, and of course from her circumstances, she would be a damaged individual lacking social skills. And yes of course, it brings to mind the Nazi concentration camps with the guards "just following orders." Lack of agency=death.

Ultimately, this book is a thought experiment but I'm not sure what I should get from it other than curiosity=life. Read at your own risk?

The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami

Noboru Watanabe!

Kazakhstan



Amanat: Women's Writing from Kazakhstan is a good collection of short stories from a bilingual nation that is losing it's traditional language and it's traditional way of life. In many cases, the women faced similar issues that we have in the US. One story was so similar (say casting couch) that I could hardly read it. One was about a poor woman made principal of a high school. Oh, I connected with that one!

Minnesota



Purgatory Ridge by William Kent Krueger is one of the Cork O'Connor mystery series. Reading these novels is always stressful for me, but I love them. I know when reading them, that the only character guaranteed not to be killed is Cork. His writing is outstanding for the way he brings the small town of Aurora, tucked in the Superior National Forest, to life, complete with it's ethnic heritage of Ojibwe, French Voyageurs and others. Lake Superior is so accurately described as to achieve character status. The weather is a large part of this book, but not in a gothic, unrealistic way. His details are perfect for anyone who knows the North Shore. Ilgen City! My favorite city in Minnesota. It consists of a hotel and a cafe. I'm not sure the cafe is still there.

Anyway, I don't feel my review has done him justice. Fabulous mystery writer. Brrrrrrr

Niger



The Epic of Askia Mohammed is a translated transcript of a native griot from Niger named _____ compiled by Thomas Hale and a team of scholars. Askia Mohammed was the most famous of the ancient Songhay kings. Some of it reads like begats. Some of it is true epic stuff with war and magic. The city of Gao moves imperceptibly to avoid enemy arrows.

I'm going to share this with my anthropologist friend. There can't be too many works like this in existence.

Latvia via Minnesota


I hope my image doesn't say anything rude. I don't speak Latvian.

Doom 94 is a delightful coming of age novel/memoir by Janis Jonevs translated by Minnesota's Kaija Straumanis. It could have been my memoir except wrong place, wrong time, wrong music.

Super-geek Janis has just left the library, run into some bullies, but gets lucky because he's cool and connect with them through music. Nirvana! Kurt Cobain is the world, even once he dies in 1994 Doom 94. The tragedy is that he is dead, but even worse, Nirvana becomes so popular that even cop cars are playing their songs. So Janis and his friends become metal heads. Yup, this is an exagerated version of my youth. Perhaps I was Mele. Do read this if your life was once centered around music and you get a chance.

Reunion Island



Bourbon Island 1730 by Appollo and Lewis Trondheim is a graphic novel about what is now called Reunion Island, an island off the coast of Madagascar. It was colonized by the French, and peopled with plantation owners, freedmen and escaped slaves, slaves and retired pirates. When you pick up this novel, you may think you are on a journey with pirates to find a treasure, and you are, but really you're exploring a society made up of these diverse people... with faces of dogs and dogs and bears.

Morocco



Hope and other dangerous pursuits by Laila Lalami starts with the worst part, crossing to Spain in an over-populated rubber raft. Then the book goes back to why people were willing to do something so dangerous and what happened after. This technique makes this novel different from what it looks like, a refugee crossing story. I enjoyed some of the people's stories, others not so much. The fact that she is following so many people means her characters aren't very fleshed out. They feel more like a round up of different types of things that happen to people. That sounds harsh, but I did enjoy the book.

Comoros



Tales of the Comoros by Hichimou Prince was an interesting introduction to the island. I know from a little internet research that the island's population comes from diverse ancient origins including African and Arab areas. They were colonized by the French, but most of the islands independent of them. Now, they are ruled by a dictator and Islam is the main religion 97% enforced by law. Not that there is anything wrong with Islam, but I was wondering how this collection would've been different if that were not the case. There were only about 2 of the folktales that seemed to have non-islamic roots. All the others had either djinns or an emphasis on Islamic principles of peace, humility, wisdom. Several were about marriages, yes fairytale-like, except for the last which had polygamous issues similar to some of the novels I've recently read from Africa. Not recommended for kids, but if you are a folklorist, this may be of interest to you.

Toni! What can we say. We miss you.
A Mercy is not my favorite Morrison, but it moves in symbols. Thousands of symbols, and it takes me back to my college years when I was in an African American studies class with Leon Forrest. He was also a writer, and Toni was his editor. His way of looking at little things repeated over and over built meaning. We criticized him for loving the books he taught so much that he wouldn't accept another interpretation of it. Hah, that's a criticism? I wish I could do it over and I would've taken more of his classes. We were such cocky young students.

A Mercy It is a beautiful novel, not afraid of ugly. If I tell you it is about.... then I think, but no, it's about... As true for most of Morrison's work, anything I can say is reductive. Why this one is not my favorite is the characterization doesn't feel as intimate as my other experiences with Morrison. It follows several voices, told almost as an interrupted diary. If I had felt a little closer to Florens, this novel would've been devastating. instead, it's just beautiful.

Burkina Faso



Coups, coups, coups. Vigilante justice, and an average life expectancy of 17. What kind of book would you expect out of this?

Devastating. So Distant from My Life by Monique Ilboudo delivers. Ilboudo is a lawyer and a women's rights activist, so I was surprised when I began reading the book and it seemed like a memoir of a man who has emigrated but is never happy wherever he is. Then we go to his childhood in Burkina Faso and his constant attempts to please his father. Philanthropy, sort of as an industry, enters. And then I'm not going to tell you anything more. I had trouble wrapping my head around the fact that this was fiction, not memoir.

Estonia



I knew a woman from Estonia who was fluent in at least three languages. When I asked her how she learned them, she said when someone comes in and occupies your land, you learn their language. Estonia has been occupied so often, I'm surprised the Estonian language still exists. So it's no wonder that an author from Estonia would invent a language to explore the power of language and the death of a language.

The Man who Spoke Snakish by Andrus Kivirahk is an historic fantasy about the time when the outside world began coming to Estonia and paganism died out. It's all about belief. He uses traditional folklore, current issues in Estonia and his imagination to build a gut-wrenching story. This one will be with me for a while.

Sri Lanka



Not really in the mood to write a review for The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka yet. I loved it and was totally immersed in it, to the detriment of the real world. I just finished it last night, and am relieved, but also wondering if I was a little let down although I can't imagine a better ending. It's just ....... when such a riveting quest ends. But it must end. I'll add more to this ramble after I've had time to process it.

Ok! This is one of those books that defies being summarized. Thriller. Murder mystery. Literary. Loved it.

Teaser summary might be: Maali Almeida, war photographer entangled with all five factions of the Sri Lankan Civil War, finds himself dead. He is in a waiting room in the afterlife that resembles the DMV, and has no memory of his last few moments. He only has a short time to find out how he was killed, and the answer may determine what comes next.

Yesterday I started reading Rosewater. I thought I would Pearl Rule it. I read exactly 40 pages, the prescribed amount. The book had a few awards though and would usually be what I liked, so I went looking for reviews. The review I read described it's "flaws" accurately. However a flaw to one person is a feature to another.

Then the person suggested that the hype for this book was because it was Nigerian genre fiction, which according to them, is no longer rare. That was the comment that made me determined to read this book. I followed a chat group formed at Wiscon by African and African American science fiction writers for years. I remember Nnedi's stories of trying to get her first book published. It kept getting rejected with comments like we like it, but don't really know what it is? We don't know how to market it. Good luck in your future endeavors.-- It was fantasy. How hard is it to market something as fantasy?

So, I am reading Rosewater. Nigeria has the 5th or so largest population in the world, and no way does the publishing industry in the United States reflect that.

Turkmenistan



Turkmenistan is hard on their writers. They are censored heavily, and punished for telling the truth. Ak Welsapar was labeled an enemy of the people for writing an article about the overuse of chemicals harming the food crops. Btw, he was right. Because of his writing, his 10 year old son was expelled from school and his wife lost her job. At this point, he left the country.

You can see the effects of growing up in such a repressive country in his writing style. Death of the Snake Catcher by Ak Welsapar is a group of short stories, some of which I love and some of which I hate. The one I hated was the final one about a dog. Since I'm a science fiction reader, I was interpreting it as apocalyptic. Hah! Am I wrong?

Namibia



The Purple Violet of Oshaantu by Neshani Andreas is an even grittier version of So Long A Letter my Mariama Ba. A woman's friend is the victim of domestic violence. The friend's husband comes home in the morning from his mistress's house, sits down to eat, then dies. The story is about the funeral rites, family interactions, the future for a widow and marriage in general. The author must have felt a little bit of shame for this book, as though she were exhibiting her country's dirty laundry. It is a quiet book, but I still found it to be a page turner.

Rosewater by Tade Thompson ended with this slammed up into the copy as though it was the last paragraph: Look out for the next instalment in the Rosewater trilogy: The Rosewater Insurrection.
WTF!
I knew I was readig a trilogy, but that took me out of the book right at the most important moment! Now I feel like the only thing I can say about the book was it was a set up for the next! I would never recommend a book that is just a set up. But up to then, I was really enjoying it. Sure, there were a few moments that seemed extraneous, but on the whole it had an interesting plot and interesting ideas. To be honest, it would make a great tv series - cool settings, tons of interesting characters, action, interesting problems.

So what do I say it was about? A man's quest for employment that doesn't kill his soul? Thieving, bank security that involves reading Orlando with a group of psychics, finder of lost objects, agent for an ambivalently good secret agency?

or

The question of getting laid: money girl, your boss, rebel leader, alien, or girl with black fire?

or is it something else altogether?

It's always good to spend some time with Isabel Allende, but I was a little disappointed with The Soul of a Woman. I was expecting a hard hitting feminist text. It is certainly feminist and political, but it was more like selected daily writings on personal and political matters. At times she uses humor, at times statistics. She talks about accomplishments of women to help women, and she talks about love and aging. I didn't come away from it with an epiphany, but I did come away with the desire to look for a summer project and an appreciation of what I have done as a teacher. It helps, but oh, it seems like a mouse building a mountain with grains of sand.

Making Money by Terry Pratchett So how exactly do you manage an Executive Danger Junkie?

Liberia



The Dragons The Giant The Women by Wayetu Moore The Dragons are fighting, Samuel Doe and Charles Taylor, for the heart of Liberia, the Giant is protecting his kids, and the women, The Women -- a mother in exile and a teenager with a gun slung over her back -- become superhuman by necessity. This is a powerful memoir of Civil War. Highly recommended.

Singapore



The Frangipani Tree Mystery by Ovidia Yu is a sweet cozy mystery set in colonized Singapore. It was enjoyable, but I did guess the murderer right away and Su Lin made some dumb mistakes that I don't like seeing in my female protagonists. Some questions weren't answered euven. Columbo would be upset. The series has potential though. She has a promotion coming in the next book, and a hint that she will be involved in the Singapore underworld.

Central African Republic



Co-Wives, Co-Widows by Adrienne Yabouza is similar to So Long a Letter and even more like The Purple Violet of Oshaantu. No spoiler here, the husband dies and the story is about the lives of the women after his death. First challenge is, of course, the inlaws who accuse the widows of poisoning their husband.

I'm wondering if this theme is written about because it is common, or it is written about because it is scandalous. Even though this has a similar plot structure as the other two, it is still very different from them so don't feel that if you've read one, you've read them all.

Togo



Mina Among the Shadows by Edem Awumey was a disappointment. It reminded me of The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida in that it was a photographer in a politically charged environment searching for someone. Maybe it suffered from the comparison because I loved Seven Moons but never quite got into the world of Mina. It didn't do enough of something for me. Enough of what the Photographer and Mina's relationship was? Enough of who Mina was? He found no surprises about her. Enough of the danger? We knew there was danger, but it was not really made clear. Perhaps I wasn't the audience. Perhaps you had to know Togo better than I do.

I'm afraid I'm going through a reading slump because I don't think I'm enjoying my books as much as I should, and I don't have the patience with them to let them get going. So here's the latest:

Serbia


The Lute and the Scars by Danilo Kis was a collection of short stories written in the shadow of the Nazi and Russian concentration camps. The story "Jurji Golec", about a friend whose on-again-off-again wife had just died, was my favorite. I particularly liked "A and B" as well, although I'm not sure what it was. Not a story, more like a prose poem.

Bulgaria


To Essay by Rusana Bardarska is a deeply personal and philosophical collection of essays. I got to page 323 and decided I needed to take a break from it. I like most of them very much, but it's a little too much all at once. I'll enjoy the rest more with a break. My favorite one is "Mom's Men" where she writes the tragic history of her mother's married life which she didn't find out about until she was grown and out of the house. She was a child of rape. I won't say more so as not to spoil it for anyone.

Guam


Attitude 13: A Daughter of Guam's Collection of Short Stories by Tanya Chargualaf Taimanglo is written at a younger reading level, perhaps 6th grade. Some of the stories are great, others banal. I wish it came with hot samples of Chamorro food! I still have 5 stories to go. I felt she was losing steam.

Next book is a novel I picked up from Half Price Books. It is not part of the around the world challenge. Sisters of the Resistance is the name, I think. My next world book was South Sudan or Rwanda. I can't face those now, and it will be hard to be better than The Dragon, The Giant, The Women.

South Sudan



I'm going to be thinking about Edo's Souls by Stella Gaitano for quite some time. It's one of those books that covers so much that it is hard to say what it is about. It takes place in the Sudan/South Sudan between 1960s? to 1980s. Edo takes a Christian name, Maria Edo, because she wants to ask God why he has taken so many children from her. She blesses (if you want to call it that) her only surviving child, Lucy, with fertility. That's just the set up. War rumbles around them and Lucy ends up going to Khartoum where she finds/births many more of Edo's souls. Read this one.

Sisters of the Resistance by Christine Wells is a spy thriller romance during World War II Paris. It's fun, right in the middle of the fashion world, just as Christian Dior is undoing all the women's war rationed fashions. In real life, his sister Catherine was a spy, and this novel takes some of the facts from her life to spin off and invent the lives of the Foucher sisters, everyday people who are thrown into heroic acts. It was a page turner, at times sweet. Kind of a cozy war novel? Bad things happened but not with a sharp focus, if you know what I mean. Makes me think that if I run across a biography of Catherine Dior, I should pick it up.

Sudan



I was a bit disappointed by The Wedding of Zein by Tayeb Salih. I wish I could've found his Season of Migration to the North because that is supposed to be an excellent book. The Wedding is a collection of 2 shorts and a novella. I remember liking "A Handful of Dates" but I've already forgotten it. What? And The Wedding of Zein made me uncomfortable right away, wondering if it hadn't aged well. Zein's wedding is sooooo amazing to the community because he is not ok. He has to be watched or else he might do something dangerous or socially unacceptable. Usually, he just laughs a lot and he looks strange, he does work but not reliably. Basically, he is what today we would call a vulnerable adult. The description of Zein reminded me of a boy I knew with Autism who is very amenable, wants to do well, laughs a lot and doesn't recognize the difference between friend or bully. That said, some of the community did back Zein and the story was more about how the community worked. The other thing that bothered me about it was it was a story about a wedding that said very little about the bride. Did the story age well and I'm just the wrong reader? Maybe.

Bhutan



What an unusual country. Led by the Dragon King, 60% set aside for natural habitat, old world remote villages, cars in the capitol but no traffic lights, ancient Buddhist monasteries. This is the world lovingly depicted in Kinley Dorji's stories and essays collected in Within the Realm of Happiness. Happiness is measured in Bhutan instead of GNP, they have GNH Gross National Happiness. Seriously. This book is a love letter to Dorji's country. May it protect itself.

Audiobook



The Case of the Felonious Faire by Drew Hayes is pure escapist fiction for nerds. It is from the 5 Minute Sherlock series. Watson (of course) tells us of his effort to keep Sherman Holmes safe. Sherman is the victim of an experiment that has killed most people, but is meant to enhance intelligence. I love this series because Hayes has chosen to show that different ability as extreme AuDHD. And yes, this case is about figuring out why someone is embezzling from the travelling Renaissance Faire.

Britain

I'm glad I read The Othered Woman: How White Feminism Harms Muslim Women by Shahed Ezaydi but I'm not sure what to do with the information. She is defining white feminism as "girlboss" feminism mostly concerned with equal pay and being able to do men's things in a men's world, and bra burning. Ok, for the sake of argument, I will accept that characterization. She is saying that white women's focus on the burka, niqab and hijab as well as certain stereotypes has fueled Islamaphobia to the point of protecting Muslim women as n used by governments for an excuse for war. I won't argue with her there. That is true. And although I don't like the idea of a women being forced to wear a burka (I've got nothing against the hijab), it certainly isn't worth going to war over. A woman choosing to put on a burka is another thing all together. I would've liked one today because I had to leave the house, but I'm having a bad hair day and would like to be left alone.

What she wants from us white women is for us to acknowledge that Muslim women have agency and are better able to solve their problems than we are. True. I think we can do better than that though. When we see people stereotyping Islamic people negatively, we can speak up or at least not participate.

It's hard not to read a book like this without feeling attacked, and sometimes it sounded as though the author knew her readers would feel defensive. Dialog with an open mind to change is so important though, even if it is uncomfortable.

>52 cammykitty: Thanks for the insights on this book and the complicated issues it brings up. Well written!

>52 cammykitty: Rhonda, thanks for the comment! Sometimes I think I'm talking to myself here, and that review took a while to get my thoughts together.

United Arab Emirates



The Sand Fish by Maha Gargash is a horror novel. Not the kind of horror novel that would be published by Arkham House or Tor, but nonetheless it is horror in that it works towards dissolution rather than resolution. That's not really a spoiler because the highly symbolic sand fish scene right in the beginning of the novel tells you what you are up against right away. It is a very carefully written book that has provoked a lot of thought in me. The writer definitely follows the Checkhov advice, if a gun shows up on the mantlepiece in the first act, it has to go off by the last act.

Technically, this is historical fiction of the UAE during the 1950s, although I keep wanting to say 1850s. It certainly is not the UAE of today. There are family groups that could be described as tribal, a witch, travel by foot or boat, arranged polygynous marriages, madmen and slaves. As for a summary, all I will say is a young spirited girl is married off to a 50 year old rich man where her only role is to do what 4 women have failed to do before her. Provide an heir.