Saturday, December 22, 2007

Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert

I started reading this book at 8:00 A.M. and didn't stop until 1:00 A.M. the same day. It was a positively captivating memoir. Elizabeth Gilbert divorced in her early 30s and (like many of us) was confused about her destiny and purpose in life. So, she took a year to travel and divided her time between Italy, India, and Indonesia. In Italy she learns the power of "pleasure," which turns out to be food and friendship. In India she explores spiritual dedication and focus, and in Indonesia she kind of combines the two pieces of understanding. She writes character well. She's authentic about emotions. She's brutally honest even if it means casting a negative light on herself. She's funny, even when she cries. Favorite Quote: "To know God, you need only to renounce one thing: your sense of division from God."

Kiss the Dust by Elizabeth Laird

(Young Adult) This is one of the novels on our roster for the adolescent lit. classs I'm teaching for teachers this year. It's about Kurdish refugees. (All of the books we're reading are part of a Middle Eastern text set.) Honestly, I did not care for this one. The writing style was kind of base, even for adolescent lit., and there wasn't enough of a historical background to understand the relationship between the Kurds and the Iraqis. In the end, it was the kind of story you could have placed in any war-torn country. I guess I was just hoping to learn more about the Kurds than I did.