Nonfiction Book Reviews

I remembered vaguely hearing about Not Without My Daughter by Betty Mahmoody when I spotted the book doing check-in at the library. Some lady got stuck in Iran and couldn’t leave was about all I could recall. So I checked the book out and brought it home - it sounded like an interesting plotline, and hopefully worth the read. I didn’t realize at the time that there had been a movie made from the book, nor have I watched the movie since, so if any of my readers out there have watched it, please pipe up - I want to hear what you thought about it.

As for the book, it was captivating. I was immediately drawn into the story and could hardly put it down. She reveals the backstory piece by piece throughout the book instead of hitting you all at once with it, so I kept wanting to read further, because there were certain things that she did that made no sense to me. She would hint at the reason, but then draw back and not actually state it. Then she’d do it again 50 pages later.  Arrgh!  Although it drove me crazy, it definitely kept my attention.

But as the backstory began to fall into place, her actions started to started to make sense (finally!) and I was by that point completely hooked. I had to know what happened next!

For those of you who haven’t read the book/watched the movie, it’s basically about how Betty marries Moody (that’s his nickname) who is from Iran.  She’d met him here in America when he was treating her as a patient - he was a doctor and apparently very Americanized, or so she thought.  Backstory, backstory, backstory (hey, if Betty made me wait, I’m going to make you wait, LOL!!!), they get married, backstory, backstory, and finally they end up in Iran on a trip, visiting his family. He completely changes his personality, and he ends up trapping her in Iran.

This trip happens in 1984, and in 1984 in Iran, a woman could be killed for using birth control without her husband’s permission.  She could also be killed for a host of other things (as Betty found out). Back then, women had zero rights - they were to be used and treated as the man saw fit. It was written into their constitution that way (as Betty also found out).  So if her husband didn’t want her to leave, there was no official way for her to get out.  She was stuck.

Betty tried to find a way to escape illegally, but every person who offered her help told her, “I can get you out, but you’ll have to leave your child.” Which is where the title of the book came from, because Betty told them all the same thing: “Not without my daughter.” She would not leave her little girl behind.

I don’t want to say anymore for fear of ruining the book, so I’ll leave the plotline there. I did want to say that there was one thing about the book that bothered me, and that was that Betty comes across as quite a snot at times, especially at the beginning. To me, his family not liking her didn’t exactly come as a surprise. She spends a lot of time bashing living conditions and food preparation, and I can just see her in my mind, looking down her nose at these “backward natives,” as she saw them.

I know it would have been hard to live through, but when you’re in Rome, sometimes you’ve got to do as the Romans do, not just sit in judgment of them and hold yourself as superior. That’s just manners.  So she kinda drove me nuts at points in the book.

Other than that quibble, I quite enjoyed the book, and I highly recommend it to anyone wanting a little more background into the Iranian government and people. Things have changed a lot in Iran in 24 years (not enough, but still, some progress) - but it’s worth the read, despite its age.

I give it 4.25 out of 5 stars.

Hava

I know this is a little late, considering I’ve been blogging here for several weeks now, but I figured this was the start of my first full month at Today, and I wanted to talk a little about why I chose nonfiction as my blog subject.

I actually work at the local library, and when I first started there this past August, I was a fiction reader to the bitter end.  Sure, I had read an occasional nonfiction book, but I remember telling people that nonfiction books were “boring” and that I liked reading fiction because it had plot lines!

The first book to really make me see how wrong I was, was Three Cups of Tea, a book about a guy named Greg Mortenson who went to Afghanistan to climb K2, ends up getting lost (twice!), and finally wanders into a local village on the verge of death.  The villagers saved his life (he almost froze and starved to death) and as he was recuperating, he asked to be shown around the village.

They did so, and as they walked around, he realized that there wasn’t a school.  He asked where the school was located, and they hemmed and hawwed - they really didn’t want to tell him.  They finally gave in, and took him around the corner to see this group of children out in the open, writing on the ground with sticks.  They were quiet, concentrating, and there were no adults in sight.  He was in shock.  He was trying to imagine a group of kids in America, let loose outside and told to go do homework without any adult supervision.  His imagination failed him.  That would never happen in America.

He decided right then and there that he wanted to help build a school in this village.  He had no idea what he just got himself into!  He built that school, and then built hundreds of others.  He’s done absolutely amazing work in Afghanistan, and some of the surrounding countries too.  It was a captivating look at this man’s life, and how he was able to affect so many people’s lives, when at many times during his life, he was actually homeless and completely broke!  I finished the book with a can-do spirit, and a real feeling of “Wow!  That was an amazing book!!!”  And just like that, I was hooked.

I quickly started reading only nonfiction books, and found that I loved a large variety of them.  Some of my favorites are the 921’s - that’s library speak for autobiographies and biographies. (In the Dewey decimal system, all of the auto/biographies are in the 921 section, and at our library, there are whole ROWS of books dedicated to just that decimal.)  I also enjoy cookbooks (I like reading cookbooks.  The strange thing is, I don’t particularly like to cook, although I love to eat.  Hmm….) I love political stuff, and just for kicks and grins, an occasional paranormal story too!  I think you’ll find that my tastes are pretty varied, so hopefully we can find some books in common.

If you’ve read a great nonfiction book that you think I should read and review, please leave a comment on this or any of my posts - I’d love to hear from you.

I’m very excited to be onboard here at Today, and I look forward to many years of bragging about my latest find in the nonfiction world!

Havs

Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can’t Stand up to the Facts by Popular Mechanics is an excellent book on one of the biggest conspiracies out there right now. Move over UFO’s, forget JFK - did the federal government and/or another “shadowy group” orchestrate September 11, 2001? The resounding answer is no, and this book explains exactly why that is.

I had read several websites claiming to have inside knowledge on the federal government’s involvement in 9/11, and when I read their claims, it did sound plausible. Why did the 7th tower fall? Why didn’t someone intercept Flight 93? But despite their claims to be laying out the “true facts” of the case, the side “no one” wants you to know, I was fairly certain that something was missing here. The biggest question in my mind was the fact that it would have taken huge manpower to pull off a stunt like this, to coordinate it to look like an Al Qaeda job. Hundreds of people would have had to have been in on it. What are the chances that all of them would have kept quiet for all of this time? I’ve heard the saying that the only way to have three people keep a secret is not to tell the secret to two of them. How about keeping hundreds of people quiet? No way.

So I read this book with relish, because I was interested in seeing some real facts on what happened on 9/11. It was extremely well written, with a great format, and no technical jargon at all but instead laid out in layman’s terms. It went through conspiracy theory by conspiracy theory, and blew each of them to little smithereens. If you have any doubts about what happened on 9/11 - if you’ve read one too many wild conspiracy websites and started to wonder if what you’d read was true - you need to read this book. If you’re interested to see what Rosie and Charlie Sheen are blathering about, you need to read this book. Your opinion of them and their intelligence will fall immeasurably after reading it (and I like Charlie Sheen in Two and a Half Men. I just try to ignore his political views if at all possible. ;-)) If you want a book to explain why things happened the way they did (why didn’t we shot down the second plane when we realized that they were being used as missiles, why did the 7th tower fall when no plane struck it, etc) then you need to read this book.

I thought it was an excellent and quick read - I give it 5 stars!

Havs

Escape from Saddam by Lewis Alsamari is a pretty good autobiography, especially if you’re interested in learning more about Middle Eastern politics from an insider. It centers around Lewis Alsamari, a boy who lived in Iraq during Saddam Hussein’s reign and who wanted to escape the country. It’s entitled Escape from Saddam even though he never met Saddam and was never influenced personally by him. From the title, I was expecting something more along the lines of him being a part of Saddam’s inner circle, but somehow getting out of the country and living to tell the tale. Instead, he met Saddam’s son once, for a brief five minutes on the street, and that was it.

I never really got heavily into the book, and I think it’s because I didn’t relate to Lewis on any level. It was a pretty gripping read, even so, and I did finish it in a couple of days. He went through some hellacious stuff, and it made me realize what a gigantic gap there is between our cultures. Over there, if your father is a part of the “right” political party, you got an extra 5 points on your graduation test, and if he served in the army, then you got another five points. He said it was common to have people graduate with 110% scores. Here in America, I can’t even fathom something like that happening. Never in a million years.

He does stay out of the political end of the Iraq war, until the Epilogue, which I appreciated - I didn’t want to read the book and have the whole thing be slanted one way or the other. His feelings are very strong on that subject - I won’t ruin the surprise and tell you what they are, but he definitely has an opinion!

If you’re interested in Iraq, the political landscape there, and what it was like before the Iraqi War, I think this is one of the better books out there to read.

I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

Havs