I went on one of those book buying sprees you sometimes go on, am reading these simultaneously. I'm like a fella with a reading disorder, only read one book for months, or go 2 or 3 months without reading anything, then binge on loads of them at a time om nom nom nom.
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Flight of the Intellectuals by Paul Berman
Twenty years ago, Ayatollah Khomeini called for the assassination of Salman Rushdie—and writers around the world instinctively rallied to Rushdie’s defense. Today, according to writer Paul Berman, “Rushdie has metastasized into an entire social class”—an ever-growing group of sharp-tongued critics of Islamist extremism, especially critics from Muslim backgrounds, who survive only because of pseudonyms and police protection. And yet, instead of being applauded, the Rushdies of today (people like Ayan Hirsi Ali and Ibn Warraq) often find themselves dismissed as “strident” or as no better than fundamentalist themselves, and contrasted unfavorably with representatives of the Islamist movement who falsely claim to be “moderates.”
How did this happen? In THE FLIGHT OF THE INTELLECTUALS, Berman—“one of America’s leading public intellectuals” (Foreign Affairs)—conducts a searing examination into the intellectual atmosphere of the moment and shows how some of the West’s best thinkers and journalists have fumbled badly in their efforts to grapple with Islamist ideas and violence.
Berman’s investigation of the history and nature of the Islamist movement includes some surprising revelations. In examining Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, he shows the rise of an immense and often violent worldview, elements of which survives today in the brigades of al-Qaeda and Hamas. Berman also unearths the shocking story of al-Banna’s associate, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who collaborated personally with Adolf Hitler to incite Arab support of the Nazis’ North African campaign. Echoes of the Grand Mufti’s Nazified Islam can be heard among the followers of al-Banna even today.
In a gripping and stylish narrative Berman also shows the legacy of these political traditions, most importantly by focusing on a single philosopher, who happens to be Hassan al-Banna’s grandson, Oxford professor Tariq Ramadan—a figure widely celebrated in the West as a “moderate” despite his troubling ties to the Islamist movement. Looking closely into what Ramadan has actually written and said, Berman contrasts the reality of Ramadan with his image in the press.
In doing so, THE FLIGHT OF THE INTELLECTUALS sheds light on a number of modern issues—on the massively reinvigorated anti-Semitism of our own time, on a newly fashionable turn against women’s rights, and on the difficulties we have in discussing terrorism—and presents a stunning commentary about the modern media’s peculiar inability to detect and analyze some of the most dangerous ideas in contemporary society.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
Things have never been easy for Oscar. A ghetto nerd living with his Dominican family in New Jersey, he’s sweet but disastrously overweight. He dreams of becoming the next J.R.R. Tolkien and he keeps falling hopelessly in love. Poor Oscar may never get what he wants, thanks to the Fukú - the curse that has haunted his family for generations. With dazzling energy and insight Díaz immerses us in the tumultuous lives of Oscar; his runaway sister Lola; their beautiful mother Belicia; and in the family’s uproarious journey from the Dominican Republic to the US and back. Rendered with uncommon warmth and humour, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a literary triumph, that confirms Junot Díaz as one of the most exciting writers of our time.
Garrincha: The Triumph and Tragedy of Brazil's Forgotten Footballing Hero by Ruy Castro
The life of Garrincha has all the hallmarks of a tragic film. From Brazilian poverty through to the highs of winning the World Cup and starring in the 1962 World Cup to the dramatic lows of alcholism, broken families and an early and painful death. It would be easy to overdramatise and exaggerate such a life in a written account. However, Ruy Castro expertly avoids this pitfall. Instead, Castro presents a tragic and balanced portrait of one of Brazil's sporting heroes in an immensely readable and intelligent account.
From a British perspective, one has heard much about Garrincha and his wizadry in the World Cups of 1958 and 1962 but know little about his life apart from his early life. Castro fills in many gaps about Garrincha and makes this one of the best football biographies written in the last few years.
John Lennon: The Life: The Definitive Biography by Philip Norman
A quarter-century after his death and nearly four decades after the Beatles dissolved, John Lennon remains a towering popular-culture figure, warranting this new contribution to the already prodigious Lennon library, by the author of the Beatles biography Shout (1997). Although Lennon’s later life, exhaustively covered by the media from the 1964 onset of Beatlemania forward, is wearyingly familiar to the general public, let alone the devoted fans who will constitute most of this book’s audience, Norman manages to unearth a wealth of new details about Lennon’s troubled childhood in Liverpool—abandoned by his father, he was turned over by his mother to an aunt, who raised him—that provides telling insight into his sometimes idiosyncratic later behavior. Once Lennon meets Paul McCartney in 1957, the book becomes perforce a Beatles biography, but even then Norman uncovers fascinating particulars about the band’s early gigs, especially their baptism by fire in the seedy clubs of Hamburg. Norman dutifully records Lennon’s post-Beatles career after the group’s breakup, but not even his exhaustive research and interviews with the musician’s associates, including widow Yoko Ono and their son, Sean, can freshen such well-trod ground very much. Nonetheless, fans should welcome Norman’s work, as complete an accounting of Lennon’s eventful and influential life as we’re ever likely to get
Tinderbox - The Past and Future of Pakistan by M. J. Akbar
Nations do not commit suicide, nor die of accidents or old age. There is, however, a serious malaise within Pakistan's body politic, arising from one gene within the country's DNA. The question is not whether Pakistan will survive, but what it will survive as: a modern democracy or an illiberal theocracy.
Jinnah visualized a Pakistan that had a Muslim majority, but was secular in its practices. He did not comprehend that he had created an opportunity for those committed to an alternative ideology. The most powerful of these ideologues was an extraordinary cleric with exceptional persuasive powers, Maulana Maududi. If Jinnah was the father of Pakistan, Maududi emerged as its godfather.
This book explores the roots of this ideology in the history of Indian Muslims; how it has, with meticulous perseverance, crept into the life of Pakistan; and what the implications are for the future. If these implications were limited to Pakistanis, it might have been a containable problem, but their impact has had explosive consequences for the region and the world. Without understanding the why, it is virtually impossible to know what needs to be done.
Topic: What book are you reading?