I Shall Not Hate by Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish

When I saw this book I knew right away I had to read it. It's one thing to say 'We Need Peace' but another entirely to actually practice it in the face of aggression and the unimaginable loss of one's children. I so admire people like Dr. Abuelaish, for keeping their focus on the inherent goodness of people, and helping their fellow human beings with the same respect as one would wish for oneself.

I Shall Not Hate is an enlightening, inspiring and hopeful book. Dr. Abuelaish is the embodiment of the principle that one should think globally and act locally.

I have long felt that medicine can bridge the divide between people and that doctors can be messengers of peace. pg6

Education was the only way out of the circumstances we were in. pg38

I love my work because a hospital is a place where humanity can be discovered, where people are treated without racism and as equals. pg78

Certainly I cannot speak for everyone, but in my experience the Israelis I worked with see the patient, not the nationality or the ethnicity. pg78

But there is also a silent camp of people in every country who believe like I do that we can bring two communities together by listening to each other's points of view and concerns. It's that simple. I know it is. pg 86

Some say I am wearing rose-coloured glasses, that I refuse to see the hopelessness of a situation. Maybe they're right. I never see anything as hopeless -- not when I'm delivering a baby that's in distress, not when I'm staunching the blood flow from a woman who is hemorrhaging, not when I'm treating a dozen other ills that have been diagnosed as untreatable. So why would I see the quarrel between two people as hopeless? I care about people. I'm no different than anyone else. We're created like that, to be social, to live with other people. Segregation is unnatural. pg107

Wise words indeed. But it's what I read on page 118 and 119 that held the key to what I truly believe to be the answer for peace for all people everywhere:

One of the ways to alter the status quo is to look to the women and girls. It's easy to find a thousand men in favour of war; it's difficult to find five women who are inclined that way. I feel it's time to empower Palestinian women and girls, to give them respect and independence and let them take the lead. 

A healthy society needs wise and educated women. An educated and healthy woman will raise an educated and healthy family. We need to link education with health care, and the most effective way to do that is to make sure that education and health care are available to women. It's an investment that can shift not only the thinking but the power in the Middle East. Removing the barriers that confront our women and girls could very well lead us to peaceful coexistence.

For more information visit his website www.daughtersforlife.com

My husband claims I have an unhealthy obsession with secondhand bookshops. That I spend too much time daydreaming altogether. But either you intrinsically understand the attraction of searching for hidden treasure amongst rows of dusty shelves or you don't; it's a passion, bordering on a spiritual illness, which cannot be explained to the unaffected.
Kathleen Tessaro, Elegance


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She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain.
Louisa May Alcott

In time of trouble, I had been trained since childhood, read, learn, work it up, go to the literature.
Joan Didion The Year of Magical Thinking

Sunday Stills - Blue

This is a painting of an elephant my son brought back from a trip to Sri Lanka last year. It's blue and it's hanging on the wall beside my desk. I've grown to love elephants because they are such social, matriarchal, family centered creatures. 

Sunday Stills is a photo meme hosted here - today's theme is 'Blue.'

I would never attempt to dissuade anyone from reading a book. But please, if you're reading a book that's killing you, put it down and read something else, just as you would reach for the remote if you weren't enjoying a TV program. Your failure to enjoy a highly rated novel doesn't mean you're dim - you may find that Graham Greene is more to your taste, or Stephen Hawking, or Iris Murdoch, or Ian Rankin. Dickens, Stephen King, whoever. It doesn't matter. All I know is that you can get very little from a book that is making you weep with the effort of reading it.
Nick Hornby

Saturday Snapshot

More West Coast pictures from our trip out there in summer 2009. For someone who doesn't live by the ocean, seeing a live starfish in a natural tidal pool is just really . . . cool. 

For more Saturday Snapshot contributions visit Alyce @ At Home With Books

100 Best First Lines

I love savoring a book's opening lines. Who knew that there would ever be a collection of them in one place? How many of these do you recognize without looking at the title? I was surprised by some, failed miserably at others, and just plain realized how not very well-read I am.

I can't pass a bookstore without slipping inside, looking for the next book that will burn in my hand when I touch its jacket, or hand me over a promissory note of such immense power that it contains the formula that will change everything about me.

Pat Conroy, My Reading Life

Heaven for Book People 
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Truly

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Top Ten Bookish Pet Peeves

Top Ten Tuesday meme hosted by Broke and Bookish

Bookish pet peeves? Yeah, I have a few.

1. An Endless Array of New and Diverse Characters: Please, authors, introduce your characters towards the beginning of the story and then leave it at that. Too many new introductions throughout the book from start to finish is overwhelming. Justin Cronin, I'm looking at you.

2. Dithering Spineless Characters: Okay, so I have a specific one in mind here just because I'd never come across one quite so irritating in an otherwise fabulous story. W. Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage took almost the entire book for the main character, Philip, to grow a pair and get on with his life. The same goes for Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment.

3. Thick Books: I like a big beefy book, but anything more than, say, 700 pages gives me heartburn. If it takes an author that long to tell a story, then please just divide it up into two smaller books.

4. Thin Books: If it's less than 100 pages, then just go ahead and publish it in a collection of short stories. Otherwise I feel like I'm reading a pamphlet.

5. Sad Endings: I'm just going to come right out and say this: I like happy, hopeful, endings. And it doesn't even have to be *happy*, just, at least, hopeful. Cold Mountain comes to mind. After all he went through, he *spoiler* dies? Wait, what? So he leaves behind a pregnant wife, big deal. I want them all to live happily ever after on the mountain with a thriving farm and lots of children! Ugh, I think I may have even thrown the book across the room when I came to the end.

6. Bow-Tie Endings: Okay, so on the flip side of #5 is the ending that is so tidy I feel like tying a ribbon around the book and adding a cherry on top. The Thirteenth Tale, I'm looking at you. I loved the book, but the ending was just a little too perfect.

7. Silly Titles: The Something Something Something and Potato Peel Pie Society? I don't know, it might be a good book, but the title is just plain goofy. Kiss The Sunset Pig is another one.

8. Hip Character Names/ Silly Character Names: Some of the current fiction that's out there is so intent on being edgy and hip -Jodie Picoult, I'm looking at you- that if I see one more 'Theo' or 'Zoe' I'm going to scream. And the silly character name award goes to Charles Dickens. That's half the reason I have not read any Dickens to completion. That, and #3.

9. Endless Descriptions: This could apply to characters or history or scenery or whatever. Just give us the need-to-know information and then get on with the story.

10. Dream Sequences: I don't read dream sequences, period. Authors, please leave them out of your books completely.

Phew. Well that rant felt good. Thanks Broke and the Bookish for providing such a therapeutic theme to your Top Ten Tuesday.

A large, still book is a piece of quietness, successful and nourishing in a noisy world, which I approach and imbibe with a sort of 'greedy enjoyment,' as Marcel Proust said of those rooms of his old home whose air was 'saturated with the bouquet of silence.' Holbrook Jackson

image: Vincent Van Gogh A Woman Reading

Reading and writing and the preservation of language and its forms and the kind of eloquence and the kind of beauty which the language is capable of is terribly important to the human being because it is connected to thought.
Iris Murdoch

As she read, at peace with the world and happy as only a little girl could be with a fine book and a little bowl of candy, and all alone in the house, the leaf shadows and the afternoon passed. 
~Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn 

Used Book Store Finds

My latest used-book store haul, in no particular order, looks something like this:

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon - A book about books! A mystery set in 1945 Barcelona. And it's got a lovely old leather-bound looking cover too. How could I resist?

Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver - I've been meaning to get back to this author for a while. What better time than now?

The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway - "A grand and powerful novel about how people retain or reclaim their humanity when they are under extreme duress." I saw some pretty good reviews for this book when it first came out, so may as well give it a try myself.

Island by Alistair MacLeod - Canadian author. Short stories. Ehn, could be good.

The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl - I don't know anything about this book except that it's a murder mystery based around Dante's Inferno. A literary club is called upon to help the police solve the crime. Hmm, sounds kind of Dan Brown-ish so it might be a fun weekend read.

Asylum by Patrick McGrath - Taut, tension-filled . . . a chilling story that works as both a Freudian parable and an old fashioned gothic shocker. I came across this title last fall while searching people's RIP V reading lists from last fall. Dunno, could be good. If I don't get to it now, I'll save it for a chilly, misty, spooky evening in October.

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors, and the most patient of teachers.
Charles W. Elliot

Perfume by Patrick Suskind

I hardly even know what to say about this book; it was weird, creepy, gruesome, and I couldn't put it down. Once you start reading, you have questions: Who is this guy and WHAT IS HE DOING? And WHY? But you have to read to the very last page to find out and, oh-my-word, it's freaky. I don't think this will ever be on my favorites list but it was a compelling read, even if just for the fascinating role odor plays in the lives of human beings. Patrick Suskind's Perfume is not for the faint of heart or delicate of stomach - I'm just saying.

Odors have a power of persuasion stronger than that of words, appearances, emotions, or will. The persuasive power of an odor cannot be fended off, it enters into us like breath into our lungs, it fills us up, imbues us totally. There is no remedy for it.

Patrick Suskind Perfume: The Story of a Murderer 

Saturday Snapshot - Snowdrops

Look what I discovered sprouting along the side of my driveway this week.  Snow drops! Aren't they sweet? Their little heads are turned all this way and that like they're looking for the sun. These little guys always amaze me, growing up through the snow like that. 

For more Saturday Snapshot contributions visit Alyce @ At Home With Books.

Every time people force themselves to carry on with a book they're not enjoying, they reinforce the idea that reading is a duty.
Nick Hornby

All noise is waste. So cultivate quietness in your speech, in your thoughts, in your emotions.
Elbert Hubbard

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We are of the opinion that instead of letting books grow mouldy behind an iron grating, far from the vulgar gaze, it is better to let them wear out by reading them.
Jules Verne A Journey to the Center of the Earth

My education was the liberty to read indiscriminately and all the time, with my eyes hanging out.
Dylan Thomas
















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Growing Pains by Daphne Du Maurier

Much of my love of reading came from my dad's almost obsessive love of books. He spent many hours in and around bookstores - especially musty old used book stores - looking for some of the more elusive titles of his favorite authors and subjects. His collection eventually got so big he had to resort to using metal shelving units in the basement to accommodate the (sorted and alphabetized) overflow. I didn't really appreciate any of this until he passed away and I inherited many of these same books, most of which I gave away or sold, the spy novels and political thrillers and such. But there were a few others I hung onto because they were either beautiful leather or linen bound antiques, or they just sounded like something I might want to pick up and read sometime in the future. So, having just recently read my own copy of Rebecca (I'm sure my dad's copy ended up in a thrift store somewhere, because -ehn- I thought it was a  romance novel . . . ) I immediately reached for this odd little book from his collection that had been sitting on my bookshelf, ignored, for years.


Growing Pains, The Shaping of a Writer by Daphne Du Maurier. Published in 1977 in celebration of her 70th birthday. I believe this book is now out of print, unless this is the same as the more current Myself When Young.

From the inside flap -

Grand-daughter of the brilliant artist and writer George du Maurier, daughter of Gerald, the most famous actor-manager of his day, she had creativity in her blood. She was deeply attached to her parents and sisters and to the other members of a closely knit family, yet she followed an intensely imaginative life of her own, acting out the books she read, writing stories and poetry when she was still quite small. In this sense she existed on two levels; and not until her parents bought the house in Cornwall where, in happy solitude, she wrote her first novel, The Loving Spirit, did she begin to find herself as a person. 


It provides a remarkable insight into the mind of a woman who has become a famous writer but nevertheless succeeded in remaining a person of great warmth, integrity and wisdom. 


All very interesting, but I like her own words best.

Our new home was altogether different. The night-nursery, which Jeanne and I shared, had its own bathroom and lavatory. This was a promotion indeed. No longer a nurse to supervise but a children's maid, whose orders we could disregard. The day-nursery was on the other side of the house, and could be reached in three separate ways: by running down the imposing main staircase, going through the dining-room, and running up a secondary staircase known as the green stairs; by running up the back staircase, which was outside the night-nursery door, along the white corridor on the second floor outside Mum and Dad's bedrooms, and so down the higher flight of green stairs; and by crossing the the first floor landing and slipping through the double drawing-room, which took about one minute.
These last two methods were unpopular with the grown-up world, but when they were out of the way a superb race could be set in motion between Jeanne and myself, one taking the first alternative, the other the second. pg 36

Share the Love

Thank you Dizzy and Stephanie for thinking of me!

I'd like to pass this on to some very lovely and interesting blogs
~Playing Librarian
~Shannon @ A Kindle in Hong Kong
~Jillian @ A Room of One's Own
~Emma @ Words and Peace
~Lee @ Wild Mountain Books
~Sam @ Tiny Library
~Alexis @ Reflections of a Bookaholic
~Mindy @ Readings and Things

Speaking of thanks . . . .

International Women's Day 2011

Jane Eyre the Trailer

Yes, but will it be as good as the book? I'm actually quite excited to see this. I also thought there was a remake of the Rebecca movie but whenever I google it I get links to the 1940s trailer or something that looks suspiciously like a straight-to-video special. Of all the remakes that make the big screen, there's got to be a Rebecca in there somewhere. C'mon Hollywood!

But then anyone who's worth anything reads just what he likes, as the mood takes him, and with extravagant enthusiasm. 
~Virginia Woolf

Saturday Snapshot

Our trip to Vancouver would not have been complete without a visit to the Vancouver Aquarium. I love this picture of the dolphin show because at first you think there's nothing there until you follow the trail of water drops to the top half of the picture where the dolphin is suspended, almost invisible, in midair. 

For more Saturday Snapshot contributions visit Alyce @ At Home With Books

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

I've never read anything by Daphne Du Maurier before because I had always written her off as a romance writer. But then I kept coming across Rebecca in genre lists like 'mystery' and 'suspense' and 'gothic' and I figured it was about time I found out for myself what all the fuss was about. Wow! I had no idea -no idea- what I'd been missing. This is so much more than a romance; it's written as if it were the memoir of a young woman and her introduction into high society. She (we never find out the protagonists name) is shy and nervous at the prospect of being the lady of the manor, but feels she is up for the challenge as long as Maxim, her new, much older, husband is by her side. Well, he kind of is, but mostly he isn't. The cad. He ignores her, leaving her to fumble through all the formalities and social customs of her new position. But we're supposed to feel sorry for Maxim too, because he's still mourning the loss of his first wife, the inimitable Rebecca. Or so it seems . . .

Almost immediately, I picked up on the similarities a couple of contemporary novels have to Rebecca: Diane Setterfield's The Thirteenth Tale, and Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger. Both fabulously atmospheric books in their own right, but not quite the same caliber. Of course Jane Eyre comes to mind too, but that book came almost a hundred years before Rebecca. Did it influence Daphne's writing I wonder?

I simply loved this book. I loved the writing, the descriptions, the atmosphere, the dialogue. The suspense! If I were to rate Rebecca, on a scale of one to ten, it would, hand's down, be a ten.

I am glad it cannot happen twice, the fear of first love. For it is a fever, and a burden, too, whatever the poets may say. They are not brave, the days when one is twenty-one. They are full of little cowardices, little fears without foundation, and one is so easily bruised, so swiftly wounded, one falls to the first barbed word. pg37

A black figure stood waiting for me at the head of the stairs, the hollow eyes watching me intently from the white skull's face. I looked around for Frith, but he had passed along the hall and into the further corridor. I was alone now with Mrs Danvers. I went up the great stairs towards her, and she waited motionless, her hands folded before her, her eyes never leaving my face. I summoned a smile, which was not returned, nor did I blame her, for there was no purpose to the smile, it was a silly thing, bright and artificial. 'I hope I haven't kept you waiting,' I said. 'It's for you to take your own time, Madam,' she answered, 'I'm here to carry out your orders,' and then she turned, through the archway of the gallery, to the corridor beyond. pg79

Gothic Challenge book #3

The Coolest Used Book Store Name Ever

Ha! I love this name. Anyone know where it is? I couldn't find the source or the location.

The taste for books was an early one. As a child he was sometimes found at midnight by a page still reading. They took his taper away, and he bred glow-worms to serve his purpose. They took the glow-worms away and he almost burnt the house down with a tinder.
~Virginia Woolf Orlando