What Are You Reading?

I'm overwhelmed with work right now. We're launching a new release of the software on March 2, so my department is working six-day weeks. And the house is still Box Central. And I still have a soft cast on my right ankle. So I get home at night and quickly collapse onto a chair to elevate my foot.

Last week I downloaded Nicholas Sparks's True Believer from Audible. This is the kind of book I love for commuting. I want to know what happens on the next page, and the next page, and so on. It makes me enjoy the drive, rather than dreading it. I like Sparks's style and enjoyed the book immensely.

Now I'm listening to Infidel, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. This is a selected book for my book group—I probably wouldn't have even heard of it otherwise. It's narrated by the author, and is very well and thoughtfully written. But its subject content is hard to listen to. Each time she talks about her mother yelling and hitting the children, I cringe. When she told of her genital mutilation at age 5 or 6, I wanted to turn the player off and not pick it up again. I am heartsick that this brutal practice continues anywhere in the world in 2009.

Here's the review from Publisher's Weekly, as included on Amazon:

Readers with an eye on European politics will recognize Ali as the Somali-born member of the Dutch parliament who faced death threats after collaborating on a film about domestic violence against Muslim women with controversial director Theo van Gogh (who was himself assassinated). Even before then, her attacks on Islamic culture as "brutal, bigoted, [and] fixated on controlling women" had generated much controversy. In this suspenseful account of her life and her internal struggle with her Muslim faith, she discusses how these views were shaped by her experiences amid the political chaos of Somalia and other African nations, where she was subjected to genital mutilation and later forced into an unwanted marriage. While in transit to her husband in Canada, she decided to seek asylum in the Netherlands, where she marveled at the polite policemen and government bureaucrats. Ali is up-front about having lied about her background in order to obtain her citizenship, which led to further controversy in early 2006, when an immigration official sought to deport her and triggered the collapse of the Dutch coalition government. Apart from feelings of guilt over van Gogh's death, her voice is forceful and unbowed—like Irshad Manji, she delivers a powerful feminist critique of Islam informed by a genuine understanding of the religion.

I think this will be a very thought-provoking book, regarding both religion and political events.

And what are you reading?