by Yaroslav Trofimov ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 18, 2007
It has taken nearly 30 years to comprehend these events in their proper context, and Trofimov does excellent work in...
Had there been no 11/20/79, there might never have been a 9/11/01: 20-20 hindsight meets solid journalistic and storytelling skills in this latest work by sometime Wall Street Journal correspondent Trofimov (Faith at War: A Journey on the Frontlines of Islam, from Baghdad to Timbuktu, 2005).
At the dawn of the 15th century, by the Islamic calendar, an armed gang led by radical Islamist Juhayman al Uteybi seized the Grand Mosque of Mecca, one of Islam’s most sacred sites, to protest the Saudi government’s corruption and illegitimacy as an ally of the West. The new year’s celebration was a day on which natives of the city mingled with foreign visitors, allowing the conspirators, among them Saudis, Pakistanis, Indians, Egyptians, Burmese, Afghans and even one American, fairly easy access into the holy precinct. There they holed up and battled a succession of Saudi military assaults, “a drawn-out battle that would drench Mecca in blood, marking a watershed moment for the Islamic world and the West.” These events were overshadowed by the seizure in Iran of the U.S. embassy, but it did not escape watchful militants in the Islamic world that the siege was finally broken when French special forces commandos entered Mecca—supposedly off-limits to infidels—and restored order. Saudis formerly loyal to the House of Saud were so shocked at the intervention that they became radicalized opponents of the regime; one such convert was Osama bin Laden, whose family was closely allied with the royals. These newly forged militants were also emboldened by the decision, under the Carter administration, to reduce the formal American presence in the Muslim world after Tehran and Mecca. Juhayman’s Islamist message, writes Trofimov, was in great degree the one Al Qaeda and its allies espouse today—and, as today, though Sunni in origin, that message is also turning Shiites to the cause of anti-Western jihad.
It has taken nearly 30 years to comprehend these events in their proper context, and Trofimov does excellent work in narrating them in that light.Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-385-51925-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2007
Share your opinion of this book
by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Share your opinion of this book
More by Elie Wiesel
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; edited by Alan Rosen
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; illustrated by Mark Podwal
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; translated by Marion Wiesel
by Paul Kalanithi ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 19, 2016
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
Awards & Accolades
Likes
18
Our Verdict
GET IT
Google Rating
Kirkus Reviews'
Best Books Of 2016
New York Times Bestseller
Pulitzer Prize Finalist
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
Share your opinion of this book
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.