Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

I’m frequently too caught up with my own small affairs to spend time thinking about rest of the world; that’s not a great thing, you understand, but it’s true. I did know of the existence of the recent crisis in Syria, but I knew nothing of the specifics until I finally opted to listen to The Book Collectors: A Band of Syrian Rebels and the Stories that Carried Them Through a War. (Which caught my eye on Libby because of the title–of course.) Part of my listening process inevitably involved some Googling, in the which I learned a bit about Bashar al-Assad and his governing style (none of it good); the book itself gave me a daily picture of a town under siege. (It reminded me of The Cat I Never Named: A True Story of Love, War, and Survival, only with a far less satisfying conclusion.) Book Collectors also expresses a reverence for books, learning, history, and the act of witnessing that resonates with me, despite a certain looseness of structure. This isn’t a story with a terribly happy ending; neither, however, is it the end of “Glory”, where everybody’s dead. It’s simply a story about human beings struggling for both freedom and survival and what books and learning and ideals can do to help in that struggle. I generally prefer my nonfiction to be more tightly written; Book Collectors, however, is short enough for that to be less of an issue. This is an eminently worthwhile read, especially for those of us who do tend to concentrate on our own homes and communities; please let me know what you think.