A whistling woman by A S Byatt

Could not finish this one, gave up after a 100 pages. The character kept appearing and appearing with no clear link between each other. There was also a temporal shift with characters sometimes appearing 30 years ago.

The Etymologicon by Mark Forsyth

I found it a very enjoyable and pleasantly written book, one which managed to keep me very entertained by invoking regular laughter. The research seems to be well managed and modern, and the author seems to be a real lover of words. Someone I would very much like to meet someday. Great effort.

In the rose garden of the martyrs by Christopher de Bellaigue

This is a great book on Iran if you have been keeping pace with what has been happening there, politically since the Islamic revolution, otherwise certain sections might became a bit of a drag. The author has the singular advantage of being a British man married to an Iranian lady and living in Tehran, giving him pretty unprecedented coverage of the insides of a very proud but wounded country. Proud because of their culture and wounded because despite their tall claims they were routinely overlooked when the new world powers were busy collecting prize lands for themselves, places like India, Sri Lanka, Africa etc.

I was a bit disappointed in that the author chose to present an Iran by interviewing people of substance and not choosing to present the life's and impacts of the ordinary people. Because of this route, every time he presented a new character, a quick historical context had to be established which proved pretty tedious to me as I had little background of the ground politics of Iran.

Machete Season by Jean Hatzfeld

The educated people were certainly the ones who drove the farmers on, out in the marshes. Today they're the ones who juggle with the words or turn close-mouthed. Many sit quietly in their same places as before. Some have become ministers or bishops; they aren't much in the public eye, but they still wear their fancy clothes and fold framed glasses. While suffering keeps us in prison. Adalbert, a Hutu farmer turned killer in the 1994 Rwanda genocide.

What a book. Its a book which is unlike any other, written from the point of view of a journalist with very few of his own deductions. I loved the whole outlay of the book as it just presented the facts from the killers point of views. There was little covering or philosophy behind the pure butchery of the whole exercise which sort of makes sense when you consider butchers dealing with meat, taking life every day and living without any remorse in their daily lives. The interviewed Hutu killers were like the butchers for three months of absolute carnage, egged on by the society and the leadership, they killed with systematic efficiency, over and over again. There seems to be no rational explanation of this absolute carnage. All you get is quiet contemplation and a warning to quell any hate filled rhetoric as quickly as possible, because any idea once popular is impossible to kill.

The social animal by David Brooks

I liked the concept and objective of the book, to present modern psychology in the form of a long story of a modern but a very Western American couple. This makes the whole presentation rather restrictive, only to two White Western American nurtured protagonists. I just wish we could get some other authors looking at various other cultures in a similar fashion, but I guess the drive has to come from other cultures and I shall not take anything away from the wonderfully scholarly work done by the author in achieving his objective. I loved the corporate cultural bits as well where a detailed analysis of a very real problem of todays world is very nicely portrayed. parts of the story are riveting but others drag on sometimes. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the Western cultural lifestyles of successful couples, along with the thousands of movies and documentaries complimenting this same worthy domain to death.

Its time authors start to use their great skills to analyze other cultures in the world as well.

The Pale Horseman by Bernard Cornwell.

This is a fictional historical novel set in the 9th century between Saxons and the Danes. What impressed me most is the story narration from the view of a common soldier who is struggling with life and religions. I also. Luke not help making a straight comparison between the current rhetoric in Pakistan and the alleged 9th century Britain. Christian God was always right, whether or not you won or lost or died or lived. The Bible along with a incalculable number of saints had ready answers for all of the issues faced by Alferd the King. All impossible problems, all ailments could be addressed by the power of the prayer. I confess, this comparison made me depressed when I considered the Pakistan milieu of today, unfortunately.

Countdown to Armageddon by Mattias Gardell

Islam in the USA. This book explains the absorption of Islam in the USA over hundreds of years from aprophycal tales of Abubakri II, ruler of Mali who had discovered America 200 years before Columbus to the current NOI school led by Louis Farrakhan, this book has it all. The main focus is on the NOI in trying to define its philosophy of the black man as Allah. Each one is Allah the Creator. The link of NOI with Libyan leader Qaddafi is also explained which is a very interesting description. I guess it is only natural that the black man, after years of slavery and direct subjugation rise up and claim its natural rank among the other races in the world. The book explains how the leaders of NOI are living like kings on handouts of the poor black brothers and how the poor brothers seem to be very happy with this unfair arrangement. The followers are happy because they are happy to be part of an establishment of speakers and edifices which they can call their own. I think this is all a part of growing up. The white man is classified as a devil himself, while all blacks are Allah's. Islam has made inroads among the American blacks precisely because no nationalist American black can call white favoured Christianity as its own. Islam is also popular because it focuses on orthopraxy rather than orthodoxy making it easier to spread without the aid of preachers and canonists travelling to far flung areas. Interestingly this is precisely the same reason why terrorists are able to form groups all over the world in isolation simply because of this effect based nature of Islam. But this opposition to white mans religion of Christianity has produced a lively argument. Consider this gem by the Messenger, Elijah Muhammad,' there is no such thing as dying and coming up out of the earth and meeting those who died before you. I say get out of such slavery teachings. It keeps you blind, deaf and dumb to reality.... When you are dead you are DEAD. Heaven and hell are not postmortem destinations but conditions on earth. Hell is when you are enslaved, poor, and deprived of true knowledge if a self and God. Hell is when someone else controls you and your life. The white man enjoys a heavenly affluence in the same world in which the black man endures hell, a situation bound to continue until the curse is lifted.'