"Infidel" by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Read this book!

Ali's biography is easily the most powerful one I've ever read. It is devastating, heart-wrenching, and exhilarating by turns, and as such it is at times a page turner and at times the kind of book you have to set aside and come back to once you're again emotionally ready to handle it. It is well worth the effort and the inevitable shock and tears. Ali has faced unspeakable abuse herself and been witness to a historically and religiously empowered system that continues to abuse, subjugate, devalue and even murder women, and she has come out swinging. You will cringe and seethe at many of her experiences, and you will weep tears of joy and relief upon reading about others. That any woman could have survived with body and mind intact, and then to have risked so much to live on her own terms, not to mention to have completed a Master's degree in a language she had started to learn a mere 4 or 5 years earlier, is a testament to sheer human willpower and determination.

Ali admires the work of Mary Wollstonecraft, and through her own hard, honest work and her refusal to be silenced, has assured herself a place in history on equal footing with Wollstonecraft. I know the word "hero" is overused, but really, Ali reminds us of what a real hero is. She has literally risked her life, bravely faced her own family’s contempt, refused to cower to threats and political pressure, and continues to do so in order to give voice to the millions of Muslim women around the world who have been infantilized and rendered mute.

Read “Infidel”. It is quite possibly the most important book of our day.

"The Prague Cemetery" by Umberto Eco

This book should have been called "Warped Italian Living in 19th Century Paris Hates the Jews, Jesuits, Freemasons and Women."  Don't subject yourself to this waste of time--it's weirdly intriguing and oddly compelling, but it's also disgusting, abhorrent, and confusing and ultimately there's no payoff.  I'm not a fan of happy endings, per se, but in the case of The Prague Cemetery, if the protagonist had gotten the fate he deserved there would at least have been a sense of catharsis. As it is, I got to the end and said out loud, "WTF was THAT?"

“Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time,” by Mark Adams

This fascinating and entertaining book is one part travelogue, one part Peruvian and Incan history, and one part biography of Hiram Bingham III, the first Western explorer to “discover” the ancient mountain city of Machu Picchu.  Adams travels the same paths that Bingham did 100 years earlier, on foot, and tells his story with a lot of insight and a healthy dose of humor; and his genuine passion for the subject matter, combined with his first-hand experience of the amazing terrain of the Andes, makes for a compelling and exciting read.  So much so that I did something while reading this book that I very rarely do.  I dragged it out.  I forced myself to stop at the end of the chapter, meting out smaller portions of the book than I’d really have liked to, because part of me wanted to stay up there in the Andes Mountains, surrounded by those amazing stone ruins and an equally amazing landscape for just a little while longer.  I really didn’t want the experience to end.

Adams’ talent for describing the breathtaking scenery is worth the read all by itself.  The sights, sounds and smells of the mountains, deserts, rivers, animals and jungle, to say nothing of the descriptions of the artifacts, architecture and truly mind-boggling engineering of the city of Machu Picchu itself are simply fantastic.  I literally found myself stopping, closing my eyes, and envisioning the majestic vistas, inhaling the wild sage, rosemary and other intoxicating aromas of the forests, and hearing the birds, the rushing water and the cadence of the languages of the native peoples.  There aren’t a lot of people who can make even such a singularly remarkable place come to full color, 3D life via the written word alone, but Adams is one who can.  As I read, I lamented the lack of glossy, panoramic photographs, but only for a few short chapters.  They actually might have detracted from the words, and I decided that they made the right decision by not trying to turn the work into a picture book. 

But these sensual scenes and the long, difficult and dangerous journey to the top of the highest mountain in the range, to the marvel of engineering and architecture that Machu Picchu is, are only part of the story.  There are Incan kings, princesses and warriors, Spanish conquistadors and missionaries, and engrossing tales of their clashes and the inevitable downfall of one whole, enormously advanced civilization at the hands of another.  There are also daring raids, jealous rivalries, and heartbreaking deceptions and cruelties that abound right through the time of Bingham’s expeditions of the early 20^th century that ultimately come face to face with the changing political climates of our own contemporary world.   Indeed, just a few days after finishing this book I noticed a news stories about the Peabody Museum’s decision to finally return most of the artifacts that Bingham himself had brought back to Harvard after his several expeditions to Peru. 

Adams has managed to infect me with his enthusiasm and I’m already half-way through another book about the Andes, although I’m finding the new book not nearly as exciting and readable as “Turn Right…” is.  I may just have to go back and read it again.

"In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise," by George Prochnik

If you regularly find yourself wishing you could erase the constant noise of traffic, cell phones, music, TVs, car alarms, sirens, construction work, and all those other distracting noises of our modern world, and just find a nice, quiet place to sit and think and decompress, then you’ll find Prochnik’s latest book of interest.  The author lives in Brooklyn, so he knows a thing or two about the unwelcome sounds of big city life, and this book chronicles his journey to discover just what all this noise does to us, physically and psychologically, and what, if anything, we can do to combat it, or at least learn to better cope with it. 

Scientists and doctors of many stripes, religious ascetics, and noise pollution activists weigh in on the dangers of modern noise levels, the latest soundproofing designs and sound measuring devices, and the overall advantages of quietness and silence.   Did you know that, even after years of experiencing police sirens driving past several times a day, for instance, our eyes will still dilate and our blood pressure will go up, even if we sit quietly and the noise of the siren only barely registers?  Did you realize that headphones are responsible for about 10% of all traffic accidents—because those wearing the headphones don’t hear oncoming traffic and drivers will slam on their brakes to avoid hitting them, creating the perfect opportunity to be rear-ended?  Well, if you didn’t, there’s much, much more to learn about the dangers of noise, and Prochnik shares them all along the way. 

On the other side of the coin, however, he also spends time with professional “boom car” drivers.  Some of them compete to see whose speakers will register the highest dB levels for the longest amount of time.  Prochnik rides along with them, interviews them, and their stories are interesting, even if they will probably fail to move anyone reading this book over to their lifestyle.  There are also sound designers, who create “soundscapes” in shopping areas and restaurants that subconsciously encourage people to spend more or less time in a place and spend more money there as well.  They cite studies that show, for example, that bars blaring music too loudly to talk over will make more money than quiet ones because people drink more, and drink more quickly, when they don’t waste all that time talking to one another.  They also clear out sooner, paving the way for someone new to sit down and start drinking.

There are revelations to be found in each of his adventures, whether walking in the famed Japanese gardens of Portland, the school for the Deaf in Washington, D.C., with the boom car enthusiasts of Tampa, the architects and sound proofers of Copenhagen, or the evolutionary neuroscientists  who are discovering how our earless, early mammalian ancestors “heard” via vibrations that affected  tiny bones in their jaws that would later migrate and become even more sensitive to vibration and eventually develop into modern ears.  All of these tales are interesting and thought provoking, although, ultimately, they are frustrating.

As his research shows, there have always been concerns about noise levels in industrial cities, and many an anti-noise society has been formed and many a piece of legislation passed to endeavor to tamper the worst of the noise and create a quieter, more peaceful environment.  But further studies show that noise levels continue to go up, despite these earnest efforts, and our hearing and overall health continue to decline as a result of it.  In other words, noise pollution seems to be here to stay, and ultimately all we are left to glean from Prochnik’s work is that the best we can do for our own physical and mental health is to steal away as often as we can to a cathedral, quiet reading room, waterfall or park, as a temporary, but much needed and much valued, respite.