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.