Upcoming Books:
September 10, 2013: Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin
October 8, 2013: Northanger Abbey by Jane Austin
November 12, 2013: "BYOB" (bring your own book): members will each select their own book to read and then come tell the group about their selection.
December 10, 2013: Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves by PG Wodehouse ~ and our annual holiday celebration ~ bring a treat to share & come join us!
Just finished reading "Stones for Schools" which picks up where "Three Cups of Tea" left off. It is an amazing and awe-inspiring story of the effort to build schools, at this point almost exclusively girls' schools, in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The work of Mr. Mortenson and his CAI (Central Asia Institute) has helped shape our military efforts in Afghanistan and is now required reading prior to deployment for many of the folks headed there. While Three Cups of Tea had a real sense of adventure and was at times a hair-raising, nail-biting tale, Stones for Schools has a very different feel -- still an inspiring and profound story, but told in a calmer, more reflective manner. And touches on some of the real bittersweet joy of devoting one's life to something so much bigger than oneself. For example, with great pride and satisfaction (and probably relief knowing the work goes on), Mortenson tells of the great progress made by others on his team (the "dirty dozen") -- often without his involvement at all in the trenches-- in many new start-up projects, including in some of the toughest, most challenging areas yet. In several bittersweet passages, it is clear that he realizes that, at this point, his most important and unique contribution is to continue to work back in the US raising awareness and $$$$ -- and that he is just not physically able to do what he could earlier on, and what is necessary to the work -- but still he longs to be back in the thick of things. The epilogue alone is worth the book ~ philosophical to the point of spiritual.
ReplyDeleteWould highly recommend it ~ Theresa