THE BLUE BETWEEN SKY AND WATER
Susan Abulhawa
Bloomsbury, June 2015, RRP $29.99
The Blue Between Sky and Water is one of those rare novels that takes devastating themes and events, but fills them all with a sense of hope. Set in Palestine during and after the Naqba, up until the mid-2010s, the novel could very easily have been many things. While its bias is obvious*, Abulhawa avoids diatribe and sentimentality in building her story of a family and a country torn apart.
KILLING HOPE
Blum, William (Common Courage Press, updated edition October 2008, ISBN 978-1567512526)
In 2009, President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” [1]
Many thought the prize undeserved – on the grounds that Obama appeared too much the enemy of peace. Had he won it, they asked, for prosecuting a war in Afghanistan? Or instead for his proposal to expand the United States military? Or for his plan to send “at least” two additional American combat brigades to Afghanistan? Continue reading
GOD’S SMUGGLER, THE LAND OF THE KANGAROO, REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE 1990s, others
Brother Andrew, Elizabeth Sherrill, John Sherrill and Pope John XXIII (Chosen Books, 2001, ISBN 9780800793012), Thomas Knox (W. A. Wilde & Company: Boston, 1896, ISBN (reprint) 9781409970385), Peter Townrow and Ron Martin (editors) (Routledge, 2002, ISBN 9780117023659)
A wearisome ancient practice requires the journalist to begin his description of any country or region by describing it as “a land of contradictions”.
The charitable view sees this as the journalist’s admission that he hasn’t comprehended his subject. That he views the disparate facets he’ll go on to describe as contradictions, comprehending too little about the country or region to harmonise them. Continue reading
BOOK OF NUMBERS
Chapters 13-14 (quotes taken from the Lamsa version, Holy Bible, ISBN for example 9780060649234)
As he nears the land of Canaan, Moses sends ahead scouts to reconnoitre the terrain. He directs them to ascertain both the enemy’s strength and the fertility of their land.
To their delight, the land appears fertile, Continue reading