First Meeting

Here's what we read and talked about:

Bénédicte
The Cruel Way
by Ella Maillart
Ella Maillart was a Swiss adventurer, journalist and travel writer. In 1939, she travelled through Eastern Europe, Turkey and Iran to Afghanistan by car with a friend, Annemarie Schwarzenbach. Ella tried in vain to cure her friend's drug addiction.

Shaleena
What is the What
by Dave Eggers
This book is about a boy from Sudan who leaves a refuge at the age of 6. He travels all the way to Ethiopia by foot.

Rishi
On the road
by Jack Kerouac
'On the Road' is a book about a man named Sal Paradise, criss-crossing the American continent in search of something illusive, almost like the character of Dean Moriarty. It is an account of the Beat Generation coming of age in a post war America with intermittent Jazz, clash of social norms and poetic interludes. It is a book that defines its time and the times to come : the sixties and the seventies. According to Dylan, "It changed my life like it changed everyone else's."

Jayant
City of Djinns: A year in Delhi
by William Dalrymple
An English journalist spends a year in Delhi and reveals its past and present.

Yuri
Eat, Pray, Love
by Elizabeth Gilbert
This book is about a woman who is dissatisfied with the 'perfect' life she is leading, gets a divorce, and travels to find her happiness in Italy, India and Indonesia. In Italy she explores the food and the language, in India she stays at an ashram, and in Indonesia she spends time with a traditional medicine man. The book was a hit when it first came out. I enjoyed it as a story, but didn't get much else out of it (her religious experiences were a bit beyond me).

Claudia
Tears of the Desert --- One woman's true story of surviving the horrors of Dafrfur.
by Halima Bashir & Damien Lewis
Halima was born in remote Western deserts of Sudan. She went to school (rare for girls in her village) and went on to become the village's first doctor. Then milita attacked her village, and becasue she spoke strongly against it (even to the UN) she was captured, tortured and raped. She escaped and set out on a journey to escape the hell of Darfur. It captured Halima's determination to survive and defend her people.