Ruby Ramblings

May Reads

What with the big overseas move and all, it was a slow reading month. Quarantine has allowed me to catch up a little.

Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America

Free PDF version of Funny in Farsi here.
Interview with Firoozeh Dimas

  Full interview HERE.

Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss Brought to us from one of the “supply drops” in the quarantine. Relevant reading for English teachers who always need a brush-up on the rules of their own language.

The Magician’s AssistantI am a fan of Ann Patchett’s, but I’m not finding this book all that engaging. A woman married to a gay man, her boss, best friend, and the magician she assists, finds an unexpected history of her husband after he dies suddenly.

On a lighter note
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Book 5)

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6)

Atticus After spending his life being an eternal f*^-up, a middle age man moves to Mexico and kills himself. The father goes to Mexico and quickly suspects it wasn’t suicide. Unfortunatly, the author gives the answer to mystery way too soon, and the second half of the book fizzles into nothingness.

Things I’ve Been Silent About by Azar Nafisi

Book TV interview with Azar Nafisi

Even more interesting than seeing Nafisi talk about her own book, is this video of her talking about Ayaan Hirsi Ali:

Ali is a dynamic, powerful, and very outspoken author and politician, who is not afraid to blatenly call out inconsistancies and things she finds disgusting about the Islamic faith in which she was raised in Somalia. For her views she has had to go into hiding from death threats she has recieved from Islamic fundamentalists (who killed her friend, director Theo Van Gogh.)

Some people find her militant or inflammatory. I read two of her books last year, and find her insightful and intelligent.

Infidel

The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam
I read the Caged Virgin while staying at ZZZ’s house,in Belgrade, Serbia, who initially introduced me to Hirsi Ali and her story.

Theo Van Gogh and Hirsi Ali made the movie Submission: Part 1, which caused such controversy and outrage in the Dutch Muslim community that Theo was shot and stabbed to death in broad daylight and left with a note saying Hirsi Ali was next. Ian Buruma wrote a very insightful book on the events, Murder in Amsterdam: Liberal Europe, Islam, and the Limits of Tolerence.

January, February, March, and April Reads

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