Sunday, March 18, 2007

Celebration for Afghan Women's Literacy Campaign

A night in celebration of women's literacy - to benefit RAWA (the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan) Monday, March 26, 730 PM at the Frontier Cafe, Cinema and Gallery, Fort Andross, Maine Street, Brunswick.
An evening of poetry (readers include Karin Spitfire, Marilyn Reizbaum, Willie Oppenheim, and Gary Lawless), Afghan food, film and music to celebrate the power of the written word in the hands of empowered women, and to support women's literacy efforts in Afghanistan. All money raised will go to the RAWA literacy program, teaching Afghan women and girls to read, through their program of hiring women teachers, for $65 per month, to teach a class of up to 25 new readers.
"If you are illiterate, it is as if you are blind." - Soraya, Afghan widow enrolled in a RAWA literacy course.

Gulf of Maine Books will do book support for the event, and suggests the following book list:

Poetry:
Songs of Love and War - Afghan Women's Poetry

RAWA related:
With All Our Strength - RAWA - Anne Brodsky
Meena - Heroine of Afghanistan - The Martyr who founded RAWA - Melody Chavis
Veiled Courage - Inside the Afghan Women's Resistance - Cheryl Benard
Veiled Threat - Hidden Power of the Women of Afghanistan - Sally Armstrong
Women of Afghanistan under the Taliban - Rosemarie Skaine
Sewing Circles of Herat - Christina Lamb
My Forbidden Face - Growing Up under the Taliban - Latifa

Other Related Non fiction
Storyteller's daughter - One woman's return to her lost homeland - Saira Shah
Kabul in Winter - Ann Jones
West of Kabul, East of New York - An Afghan American Story - Tamim Ansary
Bookseller of Kabul - Asne Seierstad
An Unexpected Light - Travels in Afghanistan - Jason Elliot
The Places in Between - Rory Stewart
Ghost Wars - The Secret History of the Cia, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet invasion to September 11 - Steve Coll

Related Fiction:
Swallows of Kabul - Yasmina Khadra
The Kite Runner - Hosseini
Winter in Kandahar - Steve Wilson

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Chechnya reading list

We will be having a reading for Chechnya at the bookstore Sat., March 31, 3 PM.

Here is a small reading list of books about Chechnya. We especially recommend the work of Anna Politkovskaya, who was murdered after publishing two books about Chechnya and another about Putin's Russia.

In stock at the store:
A Small Corner of Hell - Dispatches from Chechnya - Anna Politkovskaya
The Oath - A Surgeon Under Fire (also published as Grief of my heart - Memories of a Chechyn surgeon) Khassan Baiev
Chechnya - To the Heart of A Conflict - Andrew Meier
Chechnya: The Case for Independence - Tony Wood

Harder to find:
The Dirty War - Anna Politkovskaya
Cechnya Diary - A war correspondent's story of surviving the war in Chechnya - Thomas Goltz
Chienne de Guerre - a woman reporter behind the lines of the war in Chechnya - Anna Nival
Allah's Mountains - The Battle for Chechnya - Sebastian Smith


Tell the world,
which is sacrificing Chechnya,
that for the world,
Chechnya is burning.

Apti Bisultanov, Chechen poet

Monday, March 12, 2007

poem for Cuba week

poem for Cuba week,
by Cuban poet Nancy Morejon


This is how it is.
and this is how we sweat
while we're building the world, day by day.
One of these days we'll make ourselves a life!

Nancy Morejon, from
With Eyes and Soul - Images of Cuba
Poems by Nancy Morejon, images by Milton Rogovin
White Pine Press

chechnya reading


Friday, March 02, 2007

Book Lists

David Thodal writes from Montana, his daughter Ellie about to turn 16, sharing books he liked to read to her when she was small:
Miss Rumphius - Barbara Cooney
Annie and the Wild Animals - Jan Brett
Imogen's Antlers - David Small
Cross Country Cat - Mary Calhoun
Night in the Country - Cynthia Rylant
Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig - Eugene Trivizas and Helen Oxenbury
Coyote Stories for Children - Susan Strauss

and Genie Wheelwright shares:
"One of my favorites of past years is Any Bitter Thing, by Monica Wood. It is meaty, enchanting, compelling and deals with a number of basic human moral issues we can all relate to. Ms. Wood is from Portland, and the novel takes place in Maine, which adds another wonderful element. I gave this book to many different people from out of state for Christmas, and they have universally loved it. One Seattleite opined it would surely win a national award if it just got the publicity attention it deserved."
We agree, and would also recommend her wonderful Ernie's Ark, as well as her Pocket Muse, guaranteed to help kick-start your own writing projects.