Book Review "The Translator" by Daoud Hari

Book Review
Hari, Daoud. The Translator New York: Random House Publishing Group, 2008.

“I bring the stories to you because I know that most people want others to have good lives, and, when they understand the situation, they will do what they can to steer the world back to kindness” writes Daoud Hari at the beginning of his new memoir The Translator. Most of us in North America have only a vague idea about the troubles in the western Sudanese region known as Dafur, and even those of us who are reasonably knowledgeable about the situation there cannot even begin to imagine the levels of the atrocities there. This allows Americans to be complacent about the situation in Dafur and fail to respond with the help that is so clearly needed.

The deterioration of the climate in Sudan and subsequent famines during the eighties and nineties led to a worsening of relations between Arabs and the indigenous Fur and Zaghawa. In April of 2003, thirty three rebel land cruisers attacked a government military base. In retaliation President Bashir began a program of systemic genocide by the Arab government forces against the Zaghawa majority. Daoud Hari watched the harrowing destruction of his own village. Heartbroken at the deaths of friends and family members and armed with high school English and some key telephone numbers, Hari offered his services to western journalists so that they would have no reason not to come and get the story out about what is happening in Dafur. In the process he put his life on the line over and over again so that western journalists could get a realistic picture of how the people of Dafur have suffered. In the end he was imprisoned and tortured along with American journalist Paul Salopek, with his life being spared only through the intervention of Americans who were helped by him in the past.

Hari's description of the violence is harrowing and heartbreaking. This makes it impossible for the reader to look away and ignore what they have read. His courage and determination that one person can make a difference should be and inspiration to everyone. This is an important book that should be read and talked about as much as possible. I will definitely recommend this book to my friends.

Book Review - The Story of Forgetting by Stefan Merrill Block

Book Review Block, Stefan Merrill. The Story of Forgetting. New York: Random House, 2008


“Once, I fell in love with everything” writes Stefan Merrill Block at the beginning of his first novel The Story of Forgetting. With this one sentence I was hooked. This book tells the stories of Abel Haggard, a elderly hermit who is stuck in the past and Seth Waller, a lonely and precocious 15 year old whose mother is afflicted with a rare and inherited form of early onset Alzheimer's disease. As the stories of Abel Haggard become more inextricably linked, it seems at first as if the only thing these two characters have in common is a memory of stories of a fantastical land called Isidora, which are interwoven throughout the book.

Seth Waller is an intelligent and sensitive teenager living in suburban Austin, who is rejected by his peers. It does not help at all that his mother is becoming increasingly forgetful and absentminded. After his mother is diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease he conducts an “empirical investigation” to determine the source of his mothers affliction as his mothers background is shrouded in mystery. Abel Haggard is a hermit who is becoming increasingly mired in the past, especially the past with his brother and his brothers wife with whom he is in love and their daughter whom he claims as his own. He lives on his broken down family farm on the outskirts of ever encroaching suburban sprawl on the outskirts of Dallas.

Blocks prose is very lyrical and at times almost reads like poetry. The narrative flows along very smoothly and Block does an excellent job of blending all the disparate elements (Abel's story, Seth's story, Seth's “empirical investigation” and the Isidora story) and I though the themes of the Isidora story mirrored perfectly the state of mind in the main narrative at the time. I also felt the Block dealt sensitively with the motivations and feelings of his characters, whether dealing with the emotional baggage of having a familial form of a debilitating disease such as the type of Alzheimer's disease which afflicts Seth's mother which affects half of all descendants of its carriers in the prime of life or dealing with saving the family home in the face of increasing suburban sprawl. I have not read a book which dealt so well with the issue of trying to live while literally living under the threat of what must feel like a genetic time bomb, which may or may not cut short the prime of one's own life or that of one's own children.


In short, I felt that the Story of Forgetting was an excellent debut and I would be very interested in reading more from this young author.

Note: This review is based on the Advanced Reader's Edition.

Hedge Hunters: Hedge Fund Masters on the Rewards, The Risk and the Reckoning : Book Review

Burton, Katherine Hedge Hunters: Hedge Fund Masters on the Rewards, the Risk, and the Reckoning (Hardcover). New York: Bloomberg Press, 2007.

Burton, a journalist for Bloomberg news, writes eighteen short profiles of some of the most important hedge fund investors working today including profiles of 13 up and comers picked by the master hedge fund investors themselves. I found the book somewhat informative as someone who is not very familiar with the world of Hedge Funds.

On the down side, many of the profiles were on the superficial side often dealing with the personal style and background of the investors. From the tile I expected that the book would provide more critical analysis but the profiles were short, not particularly pithy and some of her insights were not particularly revelatory. For example that Good Hedge Fund Investors are smart, independent, ambitious and have lots of connections is not exactly news.

In short, this book would appeal to business people who would like an inspiring and not too long read. Unfortunately the title might imply a larger readership.

Donde Esta Rosetta Stone

Perhaps you've been wondering where I've been. For the last few months I've been trying to learn Spanish using our public libraries remote subscription to Rosetta Stone. For the last few weeks I've been trying to "Spanish up" before Rosetta Stone pulls the plug for good on allowing libraries to serve Rosetta Stone to their registered users over the Internet. In our library access ends on October 31st. I suspect they want all those poachers who use Rosetta Stone from their library to pay for the product themselves. I'm not sure how their thinking is going. Do they think that all of a sudden thousands of library users will magically have another $500 to pay for their own copy? I guess they hoped libraries would provide free advertising for them so that more customers will buy their overpriced and over hyped product. Me, I'm hoping that some nice person will buy me Auralog's Tell Me More Spanish Intelligent solution software for Christmas or even better that our library will subscribe to the Tell Me More service.

Steven Colbert Has His Finger On The Pulse Of The Nation

Last week Colbert was "congratulating" students at the University of Florida for standing by and doing nothing while a fellow student was Tasered while attempting to ask John Kerry questions during a speech and predicted that the brave students would fight back by blogging about it. Predictably he reported the next day that some students protested his comments on their blog. And here I am writing about it in my blog. Makes me ashamed to have a blog. Remember action on the streets?(or in the administrators office?) Colbert is right. Now whenever any one feels that rights are being violated they add to the general decline of the national discourse by blogging about it.

Why do I have a blog? Because some in my profession feel that "social softwares" are the greatest doggone thing since sliced bread, so I feel the need to "become familiar" with blogs despite real misgivings about the amateurisation of North American culture. I also have a facebook account although it seems to me that facebook society attempts to mimic all aspects of american adolescent culture except possibly the warmth of human contact. Take Top Friends for example. Why do I want to rate my friends and post their ratings on my page? I already went to junior high, years ago, and I really don't want to go back. Or do I really need to know that according to Facebook, I am considered a social outcast? (ouch!) Also as a Christian I am sometimes put off by some of the *ahem* cruder aspects of Facebook (and anti social aspects as well, to be frank)

This is not to say that libraries should not be interested in social technologies, just that sometimes we get all excited and happy about the cool (and fun!) new technologies and very rarely ever spend the time considering the social consequences that new technologies leave in their wake.

Ballerina Culture

My daughter started ballet lessons last night and she absolutely loved it. Like most of her almost five year old friends she is going through a fairy princess ballerina stage. Barbie actually capitalizes on this trend the best by making movies in which the main characters literally are fairy princess ballerinas. Of course she needed a tutu and all the fixings. The class really was more like pre-ballet but most of the little girls had tutus and slippers. Now I'm not going to be the one to burst her bubble (unless of course she is seventeen and STILL considering ballerina as a career choice) but I don't see my daughter as a ballerina. For one thing she most likely will be far too tall and for another thing, as thin as she is now the tutu made her look like a fullback for the Fighting Irish or at the very least a soccer player for the little miss USA soccer team. In fact whenever she ran "daintily" around the room she really looked like she was barreling across the soccer field. Of course I don't want to hurt her feelings but I also don't want her to get totally involved in ballet and have someone else hurt her feelings down the line. Maybe I'm over thinking this. Hopefully she'll enjoy this for a few years, get sick of it and go onto the next project. I just wonder why it seems that nowadays all little girls get on the "princess" bandwagon and why being a tomboy just is not as acceptable a choice nowadays, especially for little girls little my daughter who are, shall we say, more "athletically built" than dainty.

Donde Esta Mary? (And Exactly How do You Get Accents on an English Keyboard if You Don't Mind my Asking)

Lately it has come to my attention that in order to find a library job I need to participate in some kind of Continuing Education program in order to demonstrate that while I've been out of the work force I have been doing something. (As if watching a hyperactive three year old and his equally active five year old sister isn't doing something) One thing I've been doing in my "spare time" is trying to learn Spanish as many public library systems here in Northern Indiana need Spanish speakers. Lately I've been working on my Spanish not just strictly in my spare time leaving not so very much time for other things like writing my blog. Right now my daughter is in school but my son is looking at me forlornly holding an open bottle of water. It looks like its time for some continuing education in toddler developmental psychology. Buenas Dias!