I loved Three Worlds as a personal story, a
family saga, and a political history. The book is its own hybrid genre which
makes it a really compelling read.
It sheds light on an oft-ignored aspect of
the Middle East – the long history of Jewish communities in the Arab world – by
telling the story of the author’s family history in Iraq and Israel. The author
untangles the complex migrations and displacements of the modern Middle East
amidst anecdotes and testimonies from his mother, father, and grandparents. An
unforgettable read.
In July 1950, Avi Shlaim, only five, and his family were forced into exile, fleeing from their beloved Iraq into the new state of Israel.
Now the rump of a once flourishing community of over 150,000, dating back 2,600 years, has dwindled to single figures. For many, this tells the story of the timeless clash of the Arab and Jewish civilisations, the heroic mission of Zionism to rescue Eastern Jews from their backwards nations, and unceasing persecution as the fate and history of Jewish people.
Avi Shlaim tears up this script. His mother had many Muslim friends in Baghdad, but…
Barbara Kingsolver is one of my favourite authors, but I initially
resisted Demon Copperhead because it’s a pastiche of Dickens’ David
Copperfield, which I haven’t read.
I ended up reading a sample on my kindle
and immediately downloaded the whole thing – despite its length, it's
unputdownable and breathtaking even by the usual (very high) standards of
Kingsolver’s novels. Like all of her works, it told a compelling personal story
while also educating me as a reader.
Thanks to Demon Copperhead, I
learnt about, and became interested in, the opioid crisis, Appalachian history,
and mining industry politics in the US. As a result, this book led me to much
of the other content I consumed this year.
Demon's story begins with his traumatic birth to a single mother in a single-wide trailer, looking 'like a little blue prizefighter.' For the life ahead of him he would need all of that fighting spirit, along with buckets of charm, a quick wit, and some unexpected talents, legal and otherwise.
In the southern Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, poverty isn't an idea, it's as natural as the grass grows. For a generation growing up in this world, at the heart of the modern opioid crisis, addiction isn't an abstraction, it's neighbours, parents, and friends. 'Family' could mean love, or reluctant foster…
One of my most surprising and revelatory reads ever! I stumbled upon it
and never would have imagined including something like this on my list of
favourite books.
It brilliantly shows how what we think of as a straightforward
and self-contained subject – infant feeding – is actually a political question
interconnected with numerous issues: gender, labour, economics, global politics,
society, and community. It should be required reading regardless of whether or
not you’re a parent, and regardless of how you choose to feed your baby.
As revealing as "Freakonomics", shocking as "Fast Food Nation" and thought provoking as "No Logo", "The Politics of Breastfeeding" exposes infant feeding as one of the most important public health issues of our time. Every thirty seconds a baby dies from infections due to a lack of breastfeeding and the use of bottles, artificial milks and other risky products. In her powerful book Gabrielle Palmer describes how big business uses subtle techniques to pressure parents to use alternatives to breastmilk. The infant feeding product companies' thirst for profit systematically undermines mothers' confidence in their ability to breastfeed their babies. An…
Refuge and Resistance traces the international politics of Palestinian refugee camps across
the Middle East in the decades following their displacement. In particular, it
looks at how the refugee grassroots engaged with world politics through the UN
Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which acts as a ‘quasi-state’ for the
stateless Palestinians by providing essential services in the camps. The book
shows how Palestinian refugees continually challenged the UN’s designation of
their plight as an apolitical humanitarian issue. Like many other refugees
across time and place, they asserted the fundamentally political nature of
their crisis. In this way the book demonstrates that Palestinian refugees have
been important actors in global politics, not simply aid recipients.
