My Thoughts: The Bagdhad Diaries and The Well Seasoned Reader

I was expecting a lot from The Bagdhad Diaries by Nuha Al-Radi and was very disappointed. I had seen this book talked about a lot a few years ago and was expecting a moving account of life in the war. The diaries are written by a female Iraqi artist, she is fairly wealthy and lives a life of freedom for a woman from this area, she travels widely, is widely read and had a varied social life. Her accounts of the war generally feature what she did each day, many days describing listening to bombs falling whilst sitting in her garden typing away. Yes she does also describe the lack of food, the extreme poverty and the increase in cancer as a result of the war but I never really felt for her. I read about two thirds then skim read the rest.

This was my final book for my first complete challenge of the year, The Well-Seasoned Reader. I also read Pyongyang a graphic novel about a French artists time in North Korea and The Narrative of the Life of a Slave. Both were okay but not great.
I actually didn't end up reading any of the books on my original list, if I had I may have found more books that I enjoyed.

My Thoughts: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, An American Slave

I've been listening to this audiobook on my iPod for the last month, this is my first full length audiobook, I'm finally catching up with technology! I'll have a Kindle in about 20years time.

The title of Narrative ...... speaks for itself. The book starts from Frederick's young life when he explains how slave owners separated children from their mothers in order to stop bonding among slaves. As he grows older and is placed in different slave owners homes, he chances to have a mistress who had never owned a slave before. She teaches him the rudiments of reading, before being discovered and being informed that slaves should be left illiterate. However her lessons had stuck and Fredrick teaches himself gradually how to become a more accomplished reader and then how to write.
As he moves to different slave ownerd he is mistreated and whipped untill one day he holds his own, this event then changes the whole off his life and his views on his oppressors until he finally finds a way to escape and live the life of a free man in New York.

Challenges:
999 (Non-fiction)
A-Z (Title)
The Well Seasoned Reader
In Their Shoes

Two so-so books that others have rated highly...

Ever pick up a book that others have said is 'great' a 'must-read' and just gone 'err?' I read two books like that so far this week.
The first is the graphic novel Pyongyang by Guy Delise. The French animator is placed in North Korea for a 2 month stint in which he has to check editions of cartoons for French TV. The graphic novel is sold as 'a journey through North Korea' but is actually a single-minded mans view of a small part of North Korea. Now, I'm not saying that North Korea is amazing or politically correct, in fact I know so little about the place that I couldn't make an educated comment on the country, but I can say that Delise is negative about the place from the opening to the end of the book. He never says a single positive thing about the country or the people that he meets, instead he mocks their views, behaviour and culture. Surely if you visit a country you must find something nice to say. Anyone else read this? Have a different opinion?

Challenges:
Graphic Novel Challenge 3/12
A-Z (Title)
In Their Shoes 2/4
Lost in Translation 2/6
The Well Seasoned Reader
My Year of Reading Dangerously 1/12 (Banned

The second disappointing book is sold as 'an American Classic'. The Wonderful O is an extremely short book, which is considered to be one of the 1001 books to read before you die. The simple story is about a pirate who hates the letter O, he travels to a small island where he decides to ban the letter O and all things with that letter in its name. I liked the concept of this but never understood why the people so willingly let this stranger change their world, smash up and ruin their belongings. I liked the rhyming sentences and the amazing amount of things he could ban, and also he ludicrous ways of getting around things ie, you don't have to destroy Cows if they are part of a herd, but it was never gripping and I was happy when it was over.
Challenges
A-Z (Title)
1001 BTRBYD
999 (1001)
Decades Challenge (1950s)
Genre Challenge (Adventure)

Well Seasoned Reader Challenge

This challenge is being held by BookNut

Here's how it works:

Rule #1: The challenge runs from January 1 to March 31. (No cheating and starting before!)

Rule #2: You must read three books. After that, it's up to you how much you want to read.

Rule #3: The books must:
have a food name in the title

ORbe about cooking/eating

ORhave a place name in the title

ORbe about one (or more) person's travel experience

ORbe about a specific culture

ORbe by an author whose ethnicity is other than your own (see, I squeezed it in!)

I'll leave it up to you to choose how the three books you read fit the criteria.

Rule #4: They must be middle-grade on up, but can be either fiction or non-fiction.

The purpose, this winter, is to take yourself someplace out of the ordinary, to go on a literary trip, whether that be challenging your expectations, discovering a new place, or enjoying the experience of reading about good food, places, and people.

My List:

Driving Over Lemons: An Optimist in Andalucia, Chris Stewart (Travel and food)

Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart, Tim Butcher (Travel)

Biter Fruit, Achmat Dangor (Ethnicity and Food)