I recently posted a blog about my various travels in 2015. If I had been able to plan last
year ahead of time I doubt it would have been as interesting –
everything just rolled, like a ball going downhill....sometimes
slowly, sometimes faster.
After making a list of
some of the books I read over the last year, I realized I'd also been
traveling in books, too! Quite an education I obtained, on several levels of culture and faith, too!
I love autobiography and
biography because they encourage me to live well, endure suffering,
and to esteem others more highly than myself. I tend to see myself as
a survivor – my life has been really painful at times - and I enjoy
reading about other people who survived hardships, too. And truth is
often stranger than fiction!
Each of these books, with
the exception of Kim (a
novel based on real facts of India), contain real life experiences.
They describe people who lived with great perseverance under life
adversity, persecution and trials of many kinds. They took stands to
do and say what they saw was right - and they suffered for it. I'm
not sure many people get through life without suffering, but when you
overcome by responding rightly,
then you have a story to tell.
I highly recommend the books I marked GREAT
(my designation of "great" is more for a writing style than subject matter):
I Married An Arab
– by Mary Bushakra - GREAT
Through
this book, printed in 1951, I traveled to Lebanon, to learn a lot
about small details inside one Middle Eastern family. Their life and
cuisine were fascinating. The book also speaks of the Druse people,
during the late 1930's on through the WWII era. I didn't realize
before that the British were fighting the French, in Lebanon, during
the WWII time period. A very well-written and well-told life story!
Son of Hamas
– by Mosab Hassan Yousef - GREAT
Thanks
to my aunt Helen, I first watched the excellent documentary The
Green Prince,
which is based on this book. Son
of Hamas
arrived from the local library before I left Maine in May, but I
didn't have time to read it. I left Maine thinking I'd probably never
see this book again. But strangely, a couple weeks later in Maryland,
the family I stayed with had a copy! So I stayed up late reading and
finished it. This account really clarifies a lot of confusion over
different political groups named in the news in the Middle East.
Mosab gives the reader fifteen years of his amazing life story. He
made many sacrifices to save lives and shares very interesting
insights into the Palestinian and Isreali conflict. He tells how he
became a believer in Jesus Christ and how, for peace to exist in the
Middle East, we must practice loving our enemies.
The Last Jews of
Berlin – by Leonard Gross - GOOD
Excellent
picture of what went on back in the 1940's in Berlin, Germany, even if the
top review on Amazon has some merit on the organization of the
people's stories. And I learned how to properly spell “Wannsee”
- a place with much meaning to me and my partially-German family, who emigrated
to America before WWI.
Wild Swans, Three
Daughters of China - by Jung Chang - GREAT
This
weighty book took me months to read, for I have been traveling around
and the book was too heavy to take with me. I was amazed by the
minute detail and the incredibly vast vocabulary, for someone
speaking a second language! It contains so much suffering, so many
reasons to stand for justice and righteousness in our time here in
America! I appreciated learning, through Jung Chang's brilliant
account, of Mao Tse Tung's reign of terror. Very good lessons in this
book. It takes you all over China! Jung Chang has several You Tube videos which reveal her as a very special, articulate and intelligent, bright-eyed little lady!
God Knows My Size
- by Harvey Yoder - GOOD
A
book whose title reminds me of George Müller's
fine biography. This biography is of a Romanian woman, Silvia
Tărniceriu,
who was persucuted for her faith in Christ during the time of the
Communist rule. I always like being reminded of how our Father
provides for other's specific needs through prayer. A little choppy
in the writing style, but a good message.
Kim
– by Rudyard Kipling - GREAT
For a
book printed in 1901, I was shocked to learn I was reading an early
spy novel! I had no idea when I began reading what I was getting into
but I loved traveling via these pages through India, over a century
ago. I'd heard Kim mentioned for years, but had no knowledge
about what mysteries it contained. I LOVED the way the book pages
came alive with feeling, sounds and smells. I can really relate to
not wanting to gain too many attachments – to be free to travel the
open road in life...even though Kim was a teenager all the way
through the book =]. I guess I was tied down with responsibilities
for many, many years...and the freedom to just BE these last few
years has been very special to me. A really neat book! It speaks about a Tibetan Lama's search for a River of Life, begging for food everywhere he went, and not interested in "The Wheel of Things" in the midst of Hindu, Jain and Muslim beliefs. I can see why
Rudyard Kipling won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907!! And,
according to his bio, Kipling lived in beautiful Vermont for four
years and I read he got a lot of work done while here, writing The
Jungle Book, among other things.
Under a Red Sky –
by Haya Leah Molnar - GOOD
This
is another Jewish Survivor Story from Romania, behind the Iron
Curtain in the late 1950's to early 1960's. If you question if Jews
were really hated and killed, and did not just die from typhoid, read
this book. It's gruesome in parts but most Jewish Survivor stories
are. A good message of how one family stuck it out together, during
hard times.
Still painting and reading in secluded, wintery Vermont!
Your friend in good thought,
Elise
“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”
~ C.S. Lewis
"Finally,
brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest,
whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever
things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any
virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." ~ Philippians 4:8
