Mommy's Self-Directed Cultural Lit Class

So lately I've been on a reading binge to find out more about Islamic culture and beliefs. Given world events of the past decade, and my lack of understanding about them, I've turned to literature in an attempt to understand: Who are these people? Why do they seem to hate us? And what is the DEAL with the treatment of women?

So I began with Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns, and went on to his first book, The Kite Runner. I also read Kabul Beauty School, a nonfiction book about a woman who went to train Afghani women in hairdressing and cosmetics. (I hope she's a better hairdresser than a writer, but I still learned a lot...)

And now I'm reading The Tenth Gift by Jane Johnson, a novel which examines Muslims of the seventeenth century as well as present day. This is a total girlie book, reads like an adventure/romance novel without all the graphic descriptions of the foolin' around. Diana Gabaldon (who wrote Outlander, Voyager, Drums of Autumn, etc. - a series I discovered while knocking around in the English countryside - such an appropriate surrounding to read her novels....) wrote a nice comment on the cover of Johnson's book, and I find it to be a lot like Gabaldon's novels.

I have to speed it up, though, (I'm on a time limit now that Alex has managed to convince me of the fiscal wisdom of patronizing the library rather than the bookstore...) because next in line is Charlaine Harris' Dead Until Dark, the hysterical Vampires-in-the-Bayou book that inspired the current HBO series True Blood. Being "Mommy Incredible" with little free time, I'm limited to about one television show a week, and this is what I'm watching this fall. Thank God for DVR, I can watch it during 3am insomnia if I so choose. (Note to my more conservative friends: you may not like this series, because as you know, Vampires=sex+violence.)