re: Tell us about a book!!!
anybody read Khaled Hosseni's - A thousand Splendid Suns?? and Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan's Military Economy by Ayesha Siddiqa???
am about to finish
Eat, Pray and Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and
A million little pieces by James Frey
re: Tell us about a book!!!
Neera:
The recent one [Eat, Pray, Love] am about to finish is not really about relationships but it is about one woman's search for everything. She goes thru a divorce and then she travels for a year to Italy, India and Indonesia in search of missing: Pleasure, devotion and balance.
Check out the reviews and see if it is something of your interest!
re: Tell us about a book!!!
I just started reading "The secret life of bees," and so far it seems very interesting.
re: Tell us about a book!!!
Interestin' title ! What is it all about?
re: Tell us about a book!!!
^^ Oh it's about this girl whose mother dies when she is 4. Her father is really cruel to her and she wonders what it was like to be loved by a mother. The search for a mother, and the need to mother oneself, are crucial elements in this coming-of-age story set in the early 1960s against a background of racial violence and unrest.
Hope you will enjoy it:)
re: Tell us about a book!!!
Mohsin Hamid is just awesome... it took me just a day to read each novel.. in Pakistan i just could not find the newer novel, "Reluctant fundamentalist" so i had to get it from here (for $20 as opposed to 500 Rs =//)..but it was totally worth it.
Another book I got from Pakistan is called "The Colour of Mehndi" by Nausheen-Pasha-Zaidi.. it's about a Pakistani-American woman, on the outside has it all, a beautiful house, husband and two sons.....i don't think any western-raised desi women would be unable to identify wiht this novel.. extremely heartbreaking..
re: Tell us about a book!!!
Currently reading*: The Compendium of Knowledge and Wisdom* translated by Abdassamd Clarke of the masterwork of Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali, the Jami' al-'ulum wa;l-hikam, which is his commentary on fifty hadith including the Forty of Imaam an-Nawawi. I must say its hard material if english isnt your native language :D
At the same time reading Sirat ur Rasool Volume 1 by Dr. Tahir Ul Qadri.
And reading for the fifth time, Faster** then the Speed of Light **by
João Magueijo.
re: Tell us about a book!!!
Mohsin Hamid is just awesome... it took me just a day to read each novel.. in Pakistan i just could not find the newer novel, "Reluctant fundamentalist" so i had to get it from here (for $20 as opposed to 500 Rs =//)..but it was totally worth it.
what's he write about sara? any particular book of his you find more interesting than the rest?
re: Tell us about a book!!!
what's he write about sara? any particular book of his you find more interesting than the rest?
Well he only has two novels. It's not just the subject matter I find interesting but also the way he writes, his way with words. Plus, i read books prettyquickly anyway :D
re: Tell us about a book!!!
i like Zawiya by Ashfaq Ahmed
re: Tell us about a book!!!
Ali pur ka aili is also nice
re: Tell us about a book!!!
To subdue and crush the masses of a nation by military force,.... is to attempt the imprisonment of a whole people: all such projects must be temporary and transient, and terminate in a catastrophe." : Josiah Harlan, 1799-1871 - First American in Afghanistan
"The Man Who Would Be King" by British writer and journalist (The Times, London) Ben Mcintyre is a historical non- fiction which reads like a work of fiction. Mcintyre' book is the biography of the first American believed to have entered Afghanistan, where he fought wars, retraced Alexander's footsteps in Central and South Asia and even became a "king", under circumstances both amazing and amusing. It is widely believed that Rudyard Kipling's famous eponymous short story (made into a film by John Huston, starring Sean Connery and Michael Caine) was based on the life of this early American adventurer.
The Man Who Would Be King is the improbable life story of American Josiah Harlan, a young Quaker from Chester County, Pennsylvania. In 1822, Harlan, an earnest young man of twenty two, robust in health and florid in his imagination, set out to seek a new life with nothing more at his disposal than a love of adventure, history (especially the exploits of Alexander the Great of Macedonia) and botany. His journey began in Philadelphia and landed him in Calcutta, India, by way of China in 1824. In India he enlisted as an assistant surgeon in the army of the East India Company (the precursor to the British Raj) although the only medical knowledge Harlan possessed came from a medical manual he read during his ocean crossing. After being injured during battle in Burma, Harlan obtained his discharge from the Company's army and traveled to northwest India and Afghanistan, seeking to realize his fondest dream - to follow in the footsteps of Alexander the Great.
For several years, Harlan crossed and re-crossed the border between India (now Pakistan) and Afghanistan. In a political climate, where every man was spinning in a private orbit of political ambition, alliances were made and broken with dizzying pace. Harlan played the field on several different sides with the keen eye of a mercenary. He accumulated considerable wealth, acted as a doctor and a governor to a powerful Indian king, sided with and opposed the British and conspired for and against several Afghan aspirants to the throne.
Between the years,1837 -1839, Harlan returned to Afghanistan for the final and most eventful of his journeys. By this time he was thoroughly enamored of this rugged and dangerous land, spoke the local languages fluently, dressed in Afghan garb and sincerely admired the Afghan ruler, Dost Mohammed, who made him his military advisor. On behalf of the king, Harlan undertook a grueling expedition across the treacherous Hindu Kush Mountains. His mission, to subdue a particularly pesky and unscrupulous Uzbek warlord, based in the vicinity of Balkh, a central Asian town closely associated with Alexander of Macedonia. The dual purpose of serving his friend, the king, and traveling in Alexander's footsteps made it a doubly attractive venture and Harlan performed his duties with aplomb and joy. His impossible mission was successful and somewhere between leaving Kabul, defeating the enemy and his return to the capital, the Quaker from Pennsylvania became the Prince of Ghor, the ruler of the Hazaras ! It was to be the most momentous event in Harlan's already interesting life.
Josiah Harlan returned home to Pennsylvania after 22 years of high adventure and in his own mind, as an Afghan "king". His first order of business upon returning home was to write and publish a bitter diatribe against the British imperial design in the Indian subcontinent. He continued to write prolifically but could never again publish another book, including his memoirs. His first book caused so much uproar and anger in Britain that the American publishers did not want to take another chance with Harlan's writings. Disappointed, Harlan spent the rest of his life as a mill operator, a "civilian general" in the Union army during the Civil War, got married and had a daughter. But he had left his heart in Afghanistan and longed to return there and claim his "kingdom". To that end, he tried to convince the US government to finance his trips to Afghanistan as a "camel procurer and a grape agent"! But Harlan never did return to his kingdom which was as much a geographical place in a far away land, as it was a fantasy in his own mind. He died a poor and lonely man in San Francisco in 1871. Among his meager belongings which were returned to his widow, were a "fine golden sword, an ancient miniature ruby engraved with the image of Athena and a sheaf of yellowing papers in Persian script, which were the royal warrants of an Afghan prince".
Josiah Harlan's life story reads like a fairy tale adventure with echoes in the present. An American, leading military expeditions through Jalalabad, Kandahar, Mazar-e-Sharif, Bamian and Kabul - places most American first heard of after the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2002. The Afghanistan of 1830's was not too different from Afghanistan today - invasions by Western powers, widespread unrest, sporadic and precarious peace and warlords running amok. Harlan, the mercenary prince and early imperialist, faced the dilemma of all occupiers - either the colonizer must shed his own humanity in order to oppress fellow humans or he must acknowledge the humanity of his enemy. For Harlan, the second path prevailed and the "pompous prince" began to see the colonization through the eyes of the colonized. His observation is as true today as it was more than one hundred fifty years ago - "To subdue and crush the masses of a nation by military force,.... is to attempt the imprisonment of a whole people: all such projects must be temporary and transient, and terminate in a catastrophe." In the end, Harlan reverted to what he was brought up to be in the progressive and tolerant Quaker community of his youth - a Jeffersonian American who militated at the outrage of "offense against liberty".
the last templar
Read the book, liked the rather interesting view of the knights templar presented in that book. lends itself well to be made into a movie..well teh book coming from a guy who has been in movies business, it is not surprising. I must say the conclusion was great but the ending was not. anyone else read it?
Book of Fate
so i read this book, while the book was interesting. what had really attracted me initially was how it talked about the freemasons and US govt, its interesting for me to read for many reasons, amusing because none of the auhtors is a freemason..anyways, good idea..works very well, did not understand the reason for the wole religious angle of the 'three' to the assassin. it looked a little forced.
and you keep looking for some real show of freemasons in the whole story, but aside from histpotical references to how dc is set in a way that aerial views show masonic symbols.. whioch is no secret and every freemason knows this at the first baccha part level in the lodge, what I found rather dusgraceful was how it had nothing to do with the story, yet teh masonic symbol was on the cover of the book, i felt hoodwinked, a good book, but very unethical marketing.
Re: Book of Fate
Brad Meltzer huh -
does sound like an interesting book.
how fat is it?
Re: Book of Fate
ummmm i would say close to 500 pages.
what I like about the book..
the characters..all of them except the assassin.
the most interesting thing is the realism factor, you dont read it and shake your head saying this could never happen, i will not say more.
there are masonic undertones, but i think faint nuff that ther eis no reaosn for the masonic G to be on the cover.
Re: Book of Fate
I dont know too much about masonic. yeh kiay hai?
Re: Book of Fate
the masonic symbol of compass and square with th G in the middle..let me find a link
Re: Book of Fate
http://www.bradmeltzer.com/fate.php
see teh letter A in fate, he has replaced that with the masonic compass and square
Re: Book of Fate
OKay so what does it mean? signficance kiya hai? Whats your interest in that symbol...