Download or read book A Fort of Nine Towers written by Qais Akbar Omar and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2013-05-09 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'To read this book is to understand Afghanistan as it exists today. This haunting memoir traces the unimaginable odyssey of one family whose world has collapsed . . . Poetic, powerful, and unforgettable.' – Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns. A true life account of growing up in Afghanistan, Qais Akbar Omar recounts his happy childhood in Kabul, his journeys with his family across Afghanistan in search of a safe haven, and life under the Taliban rule as a young man. Qais was eleven when a brutal civil war engulfed Kabul. For Qais, it brought an abrupt end to a childhood filled with kites and cousins in his grandfather's garden: one of the most convulsive decades in Afghan history had begun. Ahead lay the rise of the Taliban, and, in 2001, the arrival of international forces. A Fort of Nine Towers is the story of Qais, his family and their determination to survive these upheavals as they were buffeted from one part of Afghanistan to the next. Drawing strength from each other, and their culture and faith, they sought refuge for a time in the Buddha caves of Bamyan, and later with a caravan of Kuchi nomads. When they eventually returned to Kabul, it became clear that their trials were just beginning . . . 'Even more haunting than The Kite Runner, because it's not fiction.' – Philidelphia Inquirer 'Here at last is a powerful memoir that does justice to its tough, tenacious and astonishingly good-humoured people. The best thing about it . . . is that it is a book about Afghanistan written by an Afghan.' – Evening Standard
Download or read book Shakespeare in Kabul written by Stephen Landrigan and published by Haus Publishing. This book was released on 2012-04-01 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2005, a group of actors in Kabul performed Shakespeare's Love’s Labour's Lost to the cheers of Afghan audiences and the raves of foreign journalists. For the first time in years, men and women had appeared onstage together. The future held no limits, the actors believed. In this fast-moving, fondly told and frequently very funny account, Qais Akbar Omar and Stephen Landrigan capture the triumphs and foibles of the actors as they extend their Afghan passion for poetry to Shakespeare's.Both authors were part of the production. Qais, a journalist, served as Assistant Director and interpreter for Paris actress, Corinne Jaber, who had come to Afghanistan on holiday and returned to direct the play. Stephen, himself a playwright, assembled a team of Afghan translators to fashion a script in Dari as poetic as Shakespeare's. This chronicle of optimism plays out against the heartbreak of knowing that things in Afghanistan have not turned out the way the actors expected.
Download or read book A Night in the Emperor s Garden written by Qais Akbar Omar and published by Haus Publishing. This book was released on 2015-10-15 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2005, everything seemed possible in Afghanistan. The Taliban was gone. A new government had been elected. A cultural renaissance was energizing the country. An actress visiting from Paris casually proposed to some Afghan actors in Kabul: Why not put on a play? The challenges were huge. It had been thirty years since men and women had appeared on stage together in Afghanistan. Was the country ready for it? Few Afghan actors had ever done theater. Did they even know how? They had performed only in films and television dramas. Still, a company of actors gathered—among them a housewife, a policewoman, and a street kid turned film star. With no certainty of its outcome, they set out on a journey that would have life-changing consequences for all of them, and along the way lead to A Night in the Emperor’s Garden.
Download or read book Blood Makes the Grass Grow Green written by Johnny Rico and published by Presidio Press. This book was released on 2008-12-24 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Outrageous, hilarious, and absolutely candid, Blood Makes the Grass Grow Green is Johnny Rico’s firsthand account of fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, a memoir that also reveals the universal truths about the madness of war. No one would have picked Johnny Rico for a soldier. The son of an aging hippie father, Johnny was overeducated and hostile to all authority. But when 9/11 happened, the twenty-six-year-old probation officer dropped everything to become an “infantry combat killer.” But if he’d thought that serving his country would be the kind of authentic experience a reader of The Catcher in the Rye would love, he quickly realized he had another thing coming. In Afghanistan he found himself living a Lord of the Flies existence among soldiers who feared civilian life more than they feared the Taliban–guys like Private Cox, a musical prodigy busy “planning his future poverty,” and Private Mulbeck, who didn’t know precisely which country he was in. Life in a combat zone meant carnage and courage–but it also meant tedious hours standing guard, punctuated with thoughtful arguments about whether Bea Arthur was still alive. Utterly uncensored and full of dark wit, Blood Makes the Grass Grow Green is a poignant, frightening, and heartfelt view of life in this and every man’s army.
Download or read book Our Shared Stories written by Emal Dusst and published by . This book was released on 2016-08-29 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An anthology of 40+ personal stories from around the world. The contributors offer thoughtful reflections about their experiences escaping from the wars in Afghanistan, resettling in host countries, and working to rebuild Afghanistan in the past decade. Book proceeds are dedicated to supporting girls' education in Afghanistan.
Download or read book A Pretext for War written by James Bamford and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2005-05-10 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Pretext for War reveals the systematic weaknesses behind the failure to detect or prevent the 9/11 attacks, and details the Bush administration’s subsequent misuse of intelligence to sell preemptive war to the American people. Filled with unprecedented revelations, from the sites of “undisclosed locations” to the actual sources of America’s Middle East policy, A Pretext for War is essential reading for anyone concerned about the security of the United States. Acclaimed author James Bamford–whose classic book The Puzzle Palace first revealed the existence of the National Security Agency–draws on his unparalleled access to top intelligence sources to produce a devastating expose of the intelligence community and the Bush administration.
Download or read book That Mad Game written by Jessica Lynn Powers and published by Cinco Puntos Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What's it like to grow up during war? To be a victim of violence or exiled from your homeland, culture, family, and even your own memories? When America's talking heads talk about war, children and teenagers are often the forgotten part of the story. Yet who can forget images of the Vietnam "baby lift," when Amer-Asian children were flown out of Vietnam to be adopted by Americans? Who can forget the horror of learning that Iranian children were sent on suicide missions to clear landmines? Who wasn't captivated by stories of the "lost boys" of Sudan, traveling thousands of miles alone through the desert, seeking shelter and safety? From the cartel-terrorized streets of Ju rez to the bombed-out cities of Bosnia to Afghanistan under the Taliban, from Nazi-occupied Holland to the middle-class American home of a Vietnam vet, this collection of personal and narrative essays explores both the universal and particular experiences of children and teenagers who came of age during a time of war. J.L. Powers is the editor of Labor Pains and Birth Stories and the author of two young adult novels, most recently This Thing Called the Future, an alternative fantasy set in post-apartheid South Africa. She began collecting essays on children and war while pregnant with her first child and says, "The experience was both painful and uplifting, not unlike giving birth. The most memorable aspect of these essays is their stark portrayal of both survival and hope in the midst of incredible suffering."
Download or read book The Nine Lives of Pakistan Dispatches from a Precarious State written by Declan Walsh and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2020-11-17 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2021 Overseas Press Club of America Cornelius Ryan Award The former New York Times Pakistan bureau chief paints an arresting, up-close portrait of a fractured country. Declan Walsh is one of the New York Times’s most distinguished international correspondents. His electrifying portrait of Pakistan over a tumultuous decade captures the sweep of this strange, wondrous, and benighted country through the dramatic lives of nine fascinating individuals. On assignment as the country careened between crises, Walsh traveled from the raucous port of Karachi to the salons of Lahore, and from Baluchistan to the mountains of Waziristan. He met a diverse cast of extraordinary Pakistanis—a chieftain readying for war at his desert fort, a retired spy skulking through the borderlands, and a crusading lawyer risking death for her beliefs, among others. Through these “nine lives” he describes a country on the brink—a place of creeping extremism and political chaos, but also personal bravery and dogged idealism that defy easy stereotypes. Unbeknownst to Walsh, however, an intelligence agent was tracking him. Written in the aftermath of Walsh’s abrupt deportation, The Nine Lives of Pakistan concludes with an astonishing encounter with that agent, and his revelations about Pakistan’s powerful security state. Intimate and complex, attuned to the centrifugal forces of history, identity, and faith, The Nine Lives of Pakistan offers an unflinching account of life in a precarious, vital country.
Download or read book A Fort of Nine Towers written by Qais Akbar Omar and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2014-04-08 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the rare memoirs of Afghanistan to have been written by an Afghan, A Fort of Nine Towers reveals the richness and suffering of life in a country whose history has become deeply entwined with our own. For the young Qais Akbar Omar, Kabul was a city of gardens where he flew kites from his grandfather's roof with his cousin Wakeel while their parents, uncles, and aunts drank tea around a cloth spread in the grass. It was a time of telling stories, reciting poetry, selling carpets, and arranging marriages. Then civil war exploded. Their neighborhood found itself on the front line of a conflict that grew more savage by the day. With rockets falling around them, Omar's family fled, leaving behind everything they owned to take shelter in an old fort--only a few miles distant and yet a world away from the gunfire. As the violence escalated, Omar's father decided he must take his children out of the country to safety. On their perilous journey, they camped in caves behind the colossal Buddha statues in Bamyan, and took refuge with nomad cousins, herding their camels and sheep. While his father desperately sought smugglers to take them over the border, Omar grew up on the road, and met a deaf-mute carpet weaver who would show him his life's purpose. Later, as the Mujahedin war devolved into Taliban madness, Omar learned about quiet resistance. He survived a brutal and arbitrary imprisonment, and, at eighteen, opened a secret carpet factory to provide work for neighborhood girls, who were forbidden to go to school or even to leave their homes. As they tied knots at their looms, Omar's parents taught them literature and science. In this stunning coming-of-age memoir, Omar recounts terrifyingly narrow escapes and absurdist adventures, as well as moments of intense joy and beauty. Inflected with folktales, steeped in poetry, A Fort of Nine Towers is a life-affirming triumph. A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2013 A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2013
Download or read book Once Upon a Time in Iraq written by James Bluemel and published by Random House. This book was released on 2020-07-16 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In war, there is no easy victory. When troops invaded Iraq in 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime, most people expected an easy victory. Instead, the gamble we took was a grave mistake, and its ramifications continue to reverberate through the lives of millions, in Iraq and the West. As we gain more distance from those events, it can be argued that many of the issues facing us today – the rise of the Islamic State, increased Islamic terrorism, intensified violence in the Middle East, mass migration, and more – can be traced back to the decision to invade Iraq. In The Iraq War, award-winning documentary maker James Bluemel collects first-hand testimony from those who lived through the horrors of the invasion and whose actions were dictated by such extreme circumstances. It takes in all sides of the conflict – working class Iraqi families watching their country erupt into civil war; soldiers and journalists on the ground; American families dealing with the grief of losing their son or daughter; parents of a suicide bomber coming to terms with unfathomable events – to create the most in-depth and multi-faceted portrait of the Iraq War to date. Accompanying a major BBC series, James Bluemel’s book is an essential account of a conflict that continues to shape our world, and a startling reminder of the consequences of our past decisions.
Download or read book My Life with the Taliban written by Abdul Salam Zaeef and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the autobiography of Abdul Salam Zaeef, a senior former member of the Taliban. His memoirs, translated from Pashto, are more than just a personal account of his extraordinary life. My Life with the Taliban offers a counter-narrative to the standard accounts of Afghanistan since 1979. Zaeef describes growing up in rural poverty in Kandahar province. Both of his parents died at an early age, and the Russian invasion of 1979 forced him to flee to Pakistan. He started fighting the jihad in 1983, during which time he was associated with many major figures in the anti-Soviet resistance, including the current Taliban head Mullah Mohammad Omar. After the war Zaeef returned to a quiet life in a small village in Kandahar, but chaos soon overwhelmed Afghanistan as factional fighting erupted after the Russians pulled out. Disgusted by the lawlessness that ensued, Zaeef was one among the former mujahidin who were closely involved in the discussions that led to the emergence of the Taliban, in 1994. Zaeef then details his Taliban career as civil servant and minister who negotiated with foreign oil companies as well as with Afghanistan's own resistance leader, Ahmed Shah Massoud. Zaeef was ambassador to Pakistan at the time of the 9/11 attacks, and his account discusses the strange "phoney war" period before the US-led intervention toppled the Taliban. In early 2002 Zaeef was handed over to American forces in Pakistan, notwithstanding his diplomatic status, and spent four and a half years in prison (including several years in Guantanamo) before being released without having been tried or charged with any offence. My Life with the Taliban offers a personal and privileged insight into the rural Pashtun village communities that are the Taliban's bedrock. It helps to explain what drives men like Zaeef to take up arms against the foreigners who are foolish enough to invade his homeland.
Download or read book Kabul in Winter written by Ann Jones and published by Metropolitan Books. This book was released on 2007-03-06 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sharp and arresting people's-eye view of real life in Afghanistan after the Taliban Soon after the bombing of Kabul ceased, award-winning journalist and women's rights activist Ann Jones set out for the shattered city, determined to bring help where her country had brought destruction. Here is her trenchant report from inside a city struggling to rise from the ruins. Working among the multitude of impoverished war widows, retraining Kabul's long-silenced English teachers, and investigating the city's prison for women, Jones enters a large community of female outcasts: runaway child brides, pariah prostitutes, cast-off wives, victims of rape. In the streets and markets, she hears the Afghan view of the supposed benefits brought by the fall of the Taliban, and learns that regarding women as less than human is the norm, not the aberration of one conspicuously repressive regime. Jones confronts the ways in which Afghan education, culture, and politics have repeatedly been hijacked—by Communists, Islamic fundamentalists, and the Western free marketeers—always with disastrous results. And she reveals, through small events, the big disjunctions: between U.S promises and performance, between the new "democracy" and the still-entrenched warlords, between what's boasted of and what is. At once angry, profound, and starkly beautiful, Kabul in Winter brings alive the people and day-to-day life of a place whose future depends so much upon our own.
Download or read book The Shadow Rising written by Robert Jordan and published by Tor Books. This book was released on 2010-01-19 with total page 943 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Wheel of Time is now an original series on Prime Video, starring Rosamund Pike as Moiraine! In The Shadow Rising, the fourth novel in Robert Jordan’s #1 New York Times bestselling epic fantasy series, The Wheel of Time®, Rand al’Thor now wields the sword Callandor. He is both the Champion of Light and the Dragon Reborn. Now, he seeks answers to another prophecy that lies with the warrior people known as the Aiel to put him on the path of learning how to wield the One Power. Accompanied by Moiraine Damodred, Rand arrives at the Aiel Waste and is granted permission by the Wise Ones to enter the sacred city of Rhuidean. After passing through a doorframe ter'angreal, Moiraine gains foresight while the Aiel await Rand's return, either with both arms marked by dragon symbols, validating his identity as He Who Comes With the Dawn, the Chief of Chiefs of all the Aiel—or to never emerge at all. Since its debut in 1990, The Wheel of Time® has captivated millions of readers around the globe with its scope, originality, and compelling characters. The last six books in series were all instant #1 New York Times bestsellers, and The Eye of the World was named one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read. The Wheel of Time® New Spring: The Novel #1 The Eye of the World #2 The Great Hunt #3 The Dragon Reborn #4 The Shadow Rising #5 The Fires of Heaven #6 Lord of Chaos #7 A Crown of Swords #8 The Path of Daggers #9 Winter's Heart #10 Crossroads of Twilight #11 Knife of Dreams By Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson #12 The Gathering Storm #13 Towers of Midnight #14 A Memory of Light By Robert Jordan and Teresa Patterson The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time By Robert Jordan, Harriet McDougal, Alan Romanczuk, and Maria Simons The Wheel of Time Companion By Robert Jordan and Amy Romanczuk Patterns of the Wheel: Coloring Art Based on Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Download or read book The Most Spectacular Restaurant in the World written by Tom Roston and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2019-09-10 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An “engrossing” history of the restaurant atop the World Trade Center “that ruled the New York City skyline from April 1976 until September 11, 2001” (Booklist, starred review). In the 1970s, New York City was plagued by crime, filth, and an ineffective government. The city was falling apart, and even the newly constructed World Trade Center threatened to be a fiasco. But in April 1976, a quarter-mile up on the 107th floor of the North Tower, a new restaurant called Windows on the World opened its doors—a glittering sign that New York wasn’t done just yet. In The Most Spectacular Restaurant in the World, journalist Tom Roston tells the complete history of this incredible restaurant, from its stunning $14-million opening to 9/11 and its tragic end. There are stories of the people behind it, such as Joe Baum, the celebrated restaurateur, who was said to be the only man who could outspend an unlimited budget; the well-tipped waiters; and the cavalcade of famous guests as well as everyday people celebrating the key moments in their lives. Roston also charts the changes in American food, from baroque and theatrical to locally sourced and organic. Built on nearly 150 original interviews, The Most Spectacular Restaurant in the World is the story of New York City’s restaurant culture and the quintessential American drive to succeed. “Roston also digs deeply into the history of New York restaurants, and how Windows on the World was shaped by the politics and social conditions of its era.” —The New York Times “The city’s premier celebration venue, deeply woven into its social, culinary and business fabrics, deserved a proper history. Roston delivers it with power, detail, humor and heartbreak to spare.” ?New York Post “A rich, complex account.” ?Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Download or read book The Road Not Taken Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam written by Max Boot and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2018-01-09 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize (Biography) A New York Times bestseller, this “epic and elegant” biography (Wall Street Journal) profoundly recasts our understanding of the Vietnam War. Praised as a “superb scholarly achievement” (Foreign Policy), The Road Not Taken confirms Max Boot’s role as a “master chronicler” (Washington Times) of American military affairs. Through dozens of interviews and never-before-seen documents, Boot rescues Edward Lansdale (1908–1987) from historical ignominy to “restore a sense of proportion” to this “political Svengali, or ‘Lawrence of Asia’ ”(The New Yorker). Boot demonstrates how Lansdale, the man said to be the fictional model for Graham Greene’s The Quiet American, pioneered a “hearts and minds” diplomacy, first in the Philippines and then in Vietnam. Bringing a tragic complexity to Lansdale and a nuanced analysis to his visionary foreign policy, Boot suggests Vietnam could have been different had we only listened. With contemporary reverberations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, The Road Not Taken is a “judicious and absorbing” (New York Times Book Review) biography of lasting historical consequence.
Download or read book The Nine Lives of Pakistan written by Declan Walsh and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-07-22 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'All those interested in South Asia and its complex politics and culture should read this book' - Pankaj MishraThe demise of Pakistan - a country with a reputation for volatility, brutality and radical Islam - is regularly predicted. But things rarely turn out as expected, as renowned journalist Declan Walsh knows well. Over a decade covering the country, his travels took him from the raucous port of Karachi to the gilded salons of Lahore to the lawless frontier of Waziristan, encountering Pakistanis whose lives offer a compelling portrait of this land of contradictions. He meets a crusading lawyer who risks her life to fight for society's most marginalised, taking on everyone including the powerful military establishment; an imperious chieftain spouting poetry at his desert fort; a roguish politician waging a mini-war against the Taliban; and a charismatic business tycoon who moves into politics and seems to be riding high - till he takes up the wrong cause. Lastly, Walsh meets a spy whose orders once involved following him, and who might finally be able to answer the question that haunts him: why the Pakistanis suddenly expelled him from their country. Intimate and complex, unravelling the many mysteries of state and religion, this formidable book offers an arresting account of life in a country that, often as not, seems to be at war with itself.'Thrilling, big-hearted' - Memphis Barker, Daily Telegraph'Sets a new benchmark for non-fiction about the complex palace of mirrors that is Pakistan' - William Dalrymple
Download or read book A Place of Remembrance written by Allison Blais and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2011 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With photographs and architectural plans never before published, paired with comments in the very voices of those who witnessed the event, this book will stand apart from all the rest on the 10th anniversary of that world-changing event.
