Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time by David Oliver Relin

Book Review by Zinta Aistars

Paperback: 368 pages
Publisher: Penguin, 2007
Price: $15.00
ISBN-10: 0143038257
ISBN-13: 978-0143038252

Sometimes the only way to find what you are looking for is by getting lost. Often, the only way to achieve victory is first to fail. If Greg Mortenson had not yet learned these two lessons when attempting to reach the summit of K2 in 1993—the second highest mountain in the world but, it is said, the toughest to climb—then he learned these lessons on the way down. He would never forget.

Greg Mortenson is a three-cup tea drinker. In Pakistan and Afghanistan, the tradition is that with the first cup, one is a stranger; with the second cup, one is a friend; but with the third cup, one has become family. For family, one is prepared to do anything, even to sacrifice one's life.

As a young man, Mortenson was a mountain climber and a military man, so he understood hard work and discipline. He had learned how to set a goal, keep his eyes on the summit, and go for it--with everything in him. Climbing K2 was a special challenge he had set for himself, a kind of tribute to his sister who had died young. He failed the climb, however, and when he turned around, short of the summit, and headed back down, Mortenson realized that he had gotten lost. He had intended to meet his guide in a town in the foothills, but instead had kept going down the road and ended up in a village in the Karakoram mountains. Exhausted, hungry, filthy, he was greeted with three cups of wretched tasting tea and the warm embrace of family.

Three Cups of Tea is the story of Greg Mortenson's decade of building 55 schools across Pakistan and Afghanistan in gratitude for that moment of welcome for a lost man. Many of them are schools for girls, the often forgotten ones who find a new chance at life through education. While for much of his first years in this role, Mortenson himself toes the edge of poverty, working on a bare bone salary, funding much of the school building through the kindness of a rich mentor and various other donations, he is finally recognized for the work that he does after the events of 9/11. No, not right away. Initially, he receives bags of hate mail for "helping the enemy." But there comes a fascinating turning point in the story when wiser minds begin to realize that the answer to terrorism, perpetrated, after all, by a few, is not the violence of war against many, but through the expression of human kindness—and education.

This is truly a remarkable story. If anyone deserves the Nobel Peace Prize (and there is such talk), then it is Greg Mortenson. This story is about the world-altering change one man can create. Let no one ever again say that one person cannot make a difference.

Written by David Oliver Relin, who travels all of Mortenson's paths to record this story, it is far more fascinating than any novel. Mortenson climbed his mountain. Not K2, but a mountain that no one believed he could climb, and he took 55 schools full of eager children, and the villages that surrounded them, to the highest summit.

Not only highly recommended. This book is a must, must, must read, and no less so with the elections of leaders now looming.

Working Stiff by Tori Carrington

Book Review (Advance Uncorrected Proof) by Zinta Aistars

Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Forge Books (September 2, 2008)
Price: $24.95
ISBN-10: 0765317443
ISBN-13: 978-0765317445

As soon as I opened the covers of my advanced review copy of Working Stiff, fourth in the Sofie Metropolis detective series by husband and wife writing team, Lori and Tony Karayianni as the combo name Tori Carrington, I was reminded of those long ago days of reading Nancy Drew mysteries by Carolyne Keene. I was, fair to say, obsessed with sharp and sassy girl-detective Nancy Drew as a young girl. Gee, that was long ago. I'm not sure why, but I have steered clear of mysteries ever since. Go figure. Why avoid a genre that I liked so much as an avid adolescent reader?

Because I am no longer an adolescent? I'd be hard pressed to explain why there are two genres of writing that I avoid in the bookstore: mysteries and science fiction. If I have read a spotty few in either genre over my adult years, it is usually because there is some overriding personal reason to do so. Perhaps I know the author. Perhaps a fellow reader whose literary opinions I respect has given a particular title a high recommendation. Those few times that I have crossed the line and dipped a reluctant toe into the detective and/or science fiction waters, well, it wasn't too bad a dip. Sometimes even enjoyable. And yet. Next time I am in a bookstore? You got it. I avoid those sections.

I could be very wrong, but I would guess that women, who dominate today's book buying clientele, tend away from the hard-boiled detective tome, and may not be the keenest sci fi fans, either. (That said, I have met some women who would argue that they love these types of books, so consider this my personal observation only, completely unscientific.)

Okay, so what all that means is that when I sat down to read my first Sofie Metropolis book, the decks were stacked against the authors. And it stayed that way through several of the first few chapters. Sofie's voice, in my mind, was too distinctly male. She spoke, moved, behaved, thought, too much like those by now cliche Bogey types, the Mike Hammer PIs, the fedora-wearing, minus the hat, cool dudes who were tough and cool and impossibly (annoyingly) sauve. Yeah, now I remember why I bypass the mysteries. The main characters make me cringe. Sofie even has a version of her own girl Friday, the sidekick who is ever faithful and efficient, voluptuously shaped, with seemingly little to no life outside of the PI office. And, Sofie even expressed what smacked of a male perspective of sleeping habits. The nice guy in one bed, the bad cowboy in the other, meenie minie mo. Huh. Not working for me.

But then, page by page, a metamorphosis started to happen. I realized a few hours had gone by and I had yet to put the book down. Each chapter tended to end on a teaser, and it worked to keep me reading. And, I had to admit, Sofie was kind of growing on me. She could be fun. She could have a bit of that wacky Bridget Jones quality that made chic lit big. A little goofy. More than somewhat confused about her bed partners. Vulnerable and a little bruised. Even her cranky pup, Muffy, was winning me over.

Two days later, I had finished the book. I read through it like I used to read through those Nancy Drew mysteries. Couple of big bites and done. Not exactly the literary tomes I love, the type of writing that moves me to tears or shakes up the ground I stand on, but a bit of good, lighthanded fun. I liked her ethnic background (and the Greek recipes at book's end are a nice touch). The dialogue between characters was strong and convincing.

Yeah, so the murder mystery was a bit weak in its construction, and the revelation of what happened to the stolen corpse made me wince aloud. (The adolescent reader in me would say, eeuuww! gross!) And I had to wonder, with this duo of authors writing, which author set up the scene where Sofie lingers too long to watch her girl Friday getting ready to shower, admiring her perfect nude breasts ... and which author remarked with disdain, "Dogs, I was coming to understand, were a lot like men. In the heat of the moment, they didn't have two brain cells to rub together." Who knows. I might be surprised.

But here's the thing. I had a lot of fun spending a couple days with Sofie Metro. Not a bad break between my more serious reading. I realized I'd kind of missed ol' Nancy Drew and the fun of watching her solve another light mystery. I could even be convinced to read the previous three Sofie books ...

~ for The Smoking Poet, summer 2008 issue

Belly of the Whale by Linda Merlino

Book Review by Zinta Aistars

Hardcover: 208 pages
Publisher: Kunati Inc., 2008
Price: $19.95

ISBN-10: 1601640188
ISBN-13: 978-1601640185

If you are a lover of fine literature, you know that sweet moment of discovery. This is why you read. This is why you open book cover after book cover, anticipating that golden moment. It happens when a newly opened book reaches from the printed page and into your mind, into your heart, and captures cleanly both imagination and resonant emotion. Opening Belly of the Whale, by first-time author, Linda Merlino, is such a golden moment.

I may never have picked this book up in any of my bookstore wanderings and treasure hunts. The dark cover with flashes of neon light, a tiny gunman, and a teary bald woman may have had me turn away. Don't judge. Not like that. For this book, arriving instead in my mailbox awaiting review in The Smoking Poet literary e-zine, may have begun as something of an editorial job ... but concluded with a new fan for writer Linda Merlino.

The story begins at the end.

"I fear that the dead are gathered here in this corner of Whales Market, that the sums of several lives are laid out on gurneys like me, and that yesterday I thought the worst thing happening was my breast cancer."

Hudson Catalina—"Hudson like the car, Catalina like the island, Hudson Catalina, I love you," her husband Jack whispers to her in their marriage-long game—is on the brink of giving up. Her mother has died of cancer, as has her grandmother. Now, after a double mastectomy, as she battles for life, or is it that she battles against the torments of medicine, chemo and radiation, 38-year-old Hudson wishes only to be done. Done. With all of this. Despite her four lovely babies, her ever patient and devoted husband, Hudson is beyond tired of the fight. It is Tuesday, and she throws some delicate treasure against the mirror, breaks all, feels broken herself, and has no patience left. Not even for the love of her family and closest friend. What's the point?

You know how that happens. You reach the end, what feels like the end, and when you think you have encountered the worst life can shovel on you, you encounter something even darker. Here is the belly of the whale, and Hudson is swallowed into it. Dragging herself out into a storm to go to a small grocery for a few items in preparation for her daughter's birthday, surely the last one she will share, Hudson becomes hostage to a young man gone mad with his own devastated heart and broken spirit. Here begins a nightmarish night of being held hostage, handcuffed to the dead and dying, hope threaded to another boy who is mentally incapacitated. Pressed that hard and so harshly against yet another wall in her waning life, Hudson Catalina makes some discoveries about herself and about where hope begins ... somewhere beyond the point where you think you lost it.

I am keeping my eye closely trained on this new author. Learning that Merlino wrote much of this book in longhand, scribbling notes throughout a busy mom's day, I understand the drive and motivation that could produce such a worthwhile read. In a day and age of a struggling publishing industry, just when you are about to lose hope in the literati, this kind of writing makes you find new hope yet again.

~ Zinta Aistars for The Smoking Poet, summer 2008 issue