Book review – The Magician’s Guild by Trudi Canavan

I saw the Magicians Guild in a charity shop for £2 and so I thought, why not? The story is part of a trilogy titled The Black Magician. 

Summary

In the city of Imardin, located in the Kingdom of Kyralia lies the high-brow Magician’s Guild. The King employs them in an annual “cleansing” of the city called the purge, whereby the poor and downtrodden, perceived as nothing but criminals and thieves, are either killed or driven out of the city.

Cover via Amazon

Among the struggling families is Sonea, a young girl who lives with her uncle and aunt. But just as they scrape themselves out of the slums, Sonea runs into an old gang…a daring gang who plan an attack on the city guard and the magicians. Now of course, they do this every year, and as always the magicians effortlessly create a magical shield to protect themselves from the thrown rocks and rotten vegetables. Among all of this, Sonea is encouraged by her best friend, Cery, to take part. And so, she grabs a rock, and glancing at the magicians she transfers all of her hate into the thing in her hand and throws it…

And it penetrates the shield, knocking one of the magicians unconscious. She runs away, and continues to run for months as the magicians try to track her down. Some don’t like her because she is one of the slum dwellers, others see potential, but all know that if she is not caught and trained then her power will consume her and the city around her…

Review

My first impressions were that it was an “okay” story. After reading books such as the Game of Thrones I am used to the grit of a dark world, and I had the impression that this world would probably be very “tame”. But I was kind of wrong. There are assassins, brothels, professional thieves and dubious royal Houses (although they aren’t spoken about too much detail in this book). Besides that, other Kingdoms besides Kyralia, as well as a history are all mentioned which provides a good level of depth and complexity to this book.

Nevertheless, I was pleasantly surprised as I carried on reading. The groups of people and their prejudices is very realistic, and that is very important when it comes to the lower classes and their view of the Magician’s Guild as an elitist and merciless society. Or how the Thieves, as a group, fear the Magician’s Guild. But these prejudices are slowly and surely knocked down. It is a genuinely good example of how we can overcome our prejudices. I know it sounds absurd that we take this from a fictional world with fictional people, but the principle of spending time among “the other”, and seeing a human face is very much there.

I am hoping that the powerful Houses and the King of Kyralia are explored more in the following books. However, I tend not to read sequels which is a weakness that I hope to overcome! Don’t get me wrong, the book really does make you want to know what happens next, and if you feel like going into a different world of adventure then read it now. It flowed well, and was easy to read.

A book review – SM Peters’ Whitechapel Gods

Summary

Whitechapel Gods is best described to me as a dark blend of fantasy and science fiction set in Victorian London.

In an area of London known as Whitechapel, two mechanical Gods arise; Grand Father Clock of cold logic and Mama Engine of creativity and emotion. Whitechapel becomes a walled off place that is not loyal to the Queen or London. Lifeless killer robots called boiler men who are almost unbeatable patrol these walls and the streets, carrying out the will of Grand Father Clock while the black cloaks serve Mama Engine.

Cover of Whitechapel Gods

On top of all of that a mysterious disease goes through Whitechapel, slowly ripping apart the flesh of the victims and slowly turning them into lifeless mechanical beings. As Grand Father Clock aims to complete full order and Mama Engine does her Great Work, people are sent to the Chimney where they are tortured but kept alive by machines and not allowed to die.

Meanwhile, in the literal and metaphorical underground world, the Queen’s agents are aiming to topple these Gods, and they face many challenges and losses ahead. On top of that there are other Gods waiting to arise…

Review 

On a personal level, the book starts off in a mass of confusion for me and I found it hard throughout to fully imagine what the author was trying to convey. Nevertheless, he was very successful in creating a sense of darkness and despair in Whitechapel, completely transforming it from the Whitechapel that I have seen.

The characters are truly loveable and believable. Oliver, a former rebel who is troubled by his past and his failures which resulted in the death of many innocents. Missy who was a former prostitute drugged into submission by her madame, Gisella, whose voice still haunts her. Bailey is a British patriot and leader of the current resistance. Bergen Keuper, a mysterious German explorer who appears to be cold, fearless and calculating. John Scared, an old but cunning man with his own little game, notorious for forcing children and urchins to watch his brutal torture methods. These are just some of the characters that I can list of the top of my head and they all interrelate realistically and very nicely.

However, like I said, it was confusing, and so one has to be patient until the pieces start falling into place. What kept me reading was the genre and the concept of Mechanical Gods that could possibly fall, but I imagine that those who aren’t initially interested might not get very far. The reason that the Gods fascinated me was because it provoked thought of how one can really define a God, and their apparent mortality lies close to Nordic and Greek mythology, which is far different from the world religions of today.

Despite all of this, it was a truly inspiring book even if it was fictional. It is a story of incredible resilience against almost impossible odds, and packed with action. It is not childish as people will swear and curse and that helps with the real gritty feeling of the story. But my favourite parts are when the author describes each of the Mechanical Gods, their inner workings, their minds and how they affect and break human beings. It is a tough job to do this convincingly, but the author does it well and makes it look easy.

Do you want a physical, spiritual adventure set in a dark London with an exquisite blend of science fiction and fantasy? Then please read this book!

The Game of Thrones and prophecy in the real world

I have been reading the Game of Thrones, and I am on the second book now; a Clash of Kings. Asides from the amazing level of detail that George R.R. Martin has put into the history and culture of his world, which I find truly inspirational, I think that there are lessons to be learned from a book such as this. I find that the story reflects elements of reality that we have in our own world, elements that are either simply interesting, or crucial to the understanding of society.

In the second book of the epic, called “a Clash of Kings”, the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros fall into chaos as three separate lords lay claim to an already occupied throne, and another lord aims to carve out a kingdom for himself through conquest.

However, high in the sky, a blood red comet is spotted. It’s presence seems to be like that of a second moon, prolonged and ever present, blood red as it spews fire from it’s tail. The most interesting thing about this is that many people look at this comet and see it as an omen:

Daenerys Targaryen, who used a witch to bring back to life three dragons after an age of their disappearance, believes that the comet is guiding her to a goal across a harsh desert. A goal leading to her reclaiming the throne in Westeros.

Balon Greyjoy, a lord to the sparse Iron Islands to the west of Westeros, sees it as an omen for blood and conquest, seeking out to carve himself a kingdom in the north. As their saying goes, “we do not sow”, implying that they don’t create, but take what is theirs.

Mellisandre, a priestess from the Far East, and advisor to Stannis Baratheon, another claimant to the throne, has brought her religion to the Lord and those who swear fealty to him. Unlike the polytheistic pantheons of the Old Gods and the New, she has a monotheistic vision of a fiery lord of light, R’hlor. The burning nature and red colour of the comet leads her to believe that it is a harbinger to the God’s prominence and rise of Stannis Baratheon to the throne.

These are just some of the interpretations as to the meaning of this sign. Yet what it reminds me most of is the concept of the Antichrist and return/coming of the Messiah that spans the Abrahamic religions, and also the more general concept of the “End Times”. Islam, Judaism and Christianity believe that there will be a particular sequence of events leading to the end of the world, and that there will be signs pointing to this. Yet each has their own interpretations of what the signs are, or who the Messiah will be and what he will do. I can’t help but notice a similarity here, as devout followers of all Abrahamic religions look at what they perceive to be rampant corruption and materialism around the world, which they see as a sign of the End Times, or maybe even a harbinger of God’s wrath.

A graphic novel and film review – Ari Folman’s “Waltz with Bashir”

This is a graphic novel, but I will also put it under my “books I reviewed” list because I don’t think I would be reviewing many other graphic novels.

Summary:

Using a unique blend of animation and story telling, this documentary is based on the real life story of Israeli soldier, Ari Folman. And it has now been converted into a graphic novel.

One night, a friend of Ari calls him over for a drink and tells him of a nightmare that he had, a nightmare spawned by the Lebanon War of 1982, where Israel invaded during the Lebanese Civil War from 1975-1990. On that same night, Ari starts to have recurring dreams, seeing himself and his friends back in Lebanon, back in Beirut at the site of a horrific massacre that took place in Sabra and Shatila; Palestinian refugee camps next to the capital city . It is only then that he realizes something striking; Ari has no memory of participation in that war as a soldier whatsoever, and so he goes on an inner (and outer) adventure to seek out his friends and find out the truth. It is only after he returns from visiting a friend who now lives in Holland that his memory suddenly unlocks, and he remembers the war…and the massacre which was committed by a Lebanese militia and in which he saw himself as an accessory.

The Review:

Israel, as a country, is very political. So it came as a surprise that when I watched this film and read the graphic novel, that there was no mention of politics whatsoever. This story is a purely human story, it is a story about people and not politics, about the internal thoughts of one of many soldiers involved in a massive war. It is a fresh take on documentaries, since a documentary involving conflicts, civil wars and countries such as Israel or Lebanon, are almost obliged to have a mention of politics. But Ari Folman does not need this component, what he needed and used were simply his memories and perceptions, and those of his friends who were with him during that war.

One aspect that I found quite amazing was while watching the film itself, and the graphic novel really can’t do it justice. It is the animation, which has a smooth and unique feel to it. One would wonder why Ari Folman used animated cartoon as a medium for such a project, but it turned out to be perfect in creating the ambience that surrounds dreams, a heavy element in this story, and it was a manageable budget for him as a film maker. The art style itself is melancholic in a sense, with heavy use of shadows. But it also captured the facial features of everyone very well, giving them their character.

Talking of ambience, the music is another amazing aspect which the graphic novel can do no justice (obviously). Composed by Max Richter, the music the environment it creates is so memorable that I still listen to it to this day. From the opening scene (which is confusing, and that is the only clue I will give), to the end scene, it is gripping and effective.

However, there is one thing that bugs me, and here it is phrased so eloquently from a review from electronic intifada:

The question of who was doing whose dirty work is not so easily answered, however Israel was nobody’s sidekick when it invaded Lebanon. The film does not show us the Israeli shelling of Beirut that led to 18,000 deaths and 30,000 wounded, the violations committed against civilians, the destruction of Palestinian and Lebanese resistance. And what about the fact that the Palestine Liberation Organization and armed resistors had been evacuated more than two weeks before the massacres, and that it was the day after multinational forces left Beirut that Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon made it known that 2,000 “terrorists” remained in the camps? The focus of Folman’s quest for responsibility in Waltz with Bashir hones in on lighting the flares as the Phalangists “mopped up” the camps. That two months before the massacres Sharon had announced his objective to send Phalangist forces into the camps, that the Israeli army surrounded and sealed the camps, that they shelled the camps, that snipers shot at camp dwellers in the days before the massacres, and then having given the green light to the Phalangists to enter Sabra and Shatila, the Israeli army prevented people from fleeing the camps — all of this is absent in Waltz with Bashir.

I must stress that if you want an accurate view of the Lebanon invasion in it’s entirety, then don’t just rely on Ari Folman’s views and perceptions. Read a history book and look at multiple sources from multiple sides. This story is purely from his point of view,  that much is made clear when not a single Palestinian in the film is given a name or a face. Not a single one even speaks, and the women at the end who scream amongst the dead bodies are not even subtitled. I would say that is quite accurate of how Israelis see us, just how we see Israeli soldiers all monotonous in their uniforms, devoid of personality and, at times, compassion.

With that said, I will give one spoiler warning, but this is purely to prepare you. While the film/comic is an animated style cartoon, Ari Folman inserts real life images of the Sabra and Shatila massacre at the end (both the film and graphic novel) just to pull us back to reality. After watching the film at a friend’s house, and seeing those images as well, it really left me with a lot of emotions running through my head. I remember leaving the house with dark clouds in the sky, and it left me with a very sombre impression. Me being Palestinian affected me considerably, but no matter who you are, this tale of friendship, discovery, guilt and violence will move you.

I really would give this five stars, and even more if I could.

Gaming and how I came to read H.P. Lovecraft

Video games aren’t always held in the best of attitudes when it comes to the media. Every time someone does something stupid or horrendous, such as murdering people, and people find out they used to play games like World of Warcraft or Call of Duty, they make great and unfounded assumptions.

If you had clicked the link, then you would know that I am referring to the very tragic and horrific 77 killings in Norway carried out by Anders Breivik.

Now in my own opinion, it is simply silly to believe that you can use a game like Call of Duty to find out how to operate a gun, get used to the weight and recoil and train in accuracy. But I don’t want to dwell on that as I know that a lot of fellow Gamers agree with me, instead I want to talk about how video games have been a positive force in my life.

I was once playing the role playing game, the Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, exploring my world happily and innocently, content that this was the best £20 I had spent so far. I played through one quest where I had to go to a mysterious village that was unkind to strangers, and try to find a girl who had disappeared there. It was a challenging one, and the village had a particularly interesting character to it, so I opened up the elder scrolls wiki and read about it.

The trivia section that concerns the village and the related quest to it says this:
“This quest is a homage to the H.P.Lovecraft short story ‘The Shadow Over Innsmouth’, featuring a very similar plot”

The only reason I read, nay, even  heard about an author such as H.P. Lovecraft was thanks to the makers of the Elder Scrolls: Oblivion.

Hackdirt - credit: The elder scrolls wiki

What I had just witnessed and experienced was how Art (in this case, literature) inspired game developers, and how they incorporated this inspiration into the game. In turn, I was pointed to an amazing and inspiring author who I read (and hope to actually review later!). Such are the potential of games.

Aren’t artists always inspired by works of art and experiences themselves? I like to believe that, at least in this particular part of the game, there was a work of art in itself. The formation of Lovecraft’s story, a shadow over innsmouth, into the world of the Elder Scrolls in a very smart way.

Imagine what can be done if game developers really do take inspiration from other forms of art, be it dance, literature, painting and drawing, and incorporating it into their own work. Imagine if they give credit, giving us a fresh new perspective and encouraging us to look at the art itself.

It is just food for thought and a defence of gaming.

Also on this note, please comment with other examples of where you found Games that were inspired by a particular work of art!

A book review – Mark Haddon’s “A spot of bother”

Before I launch into “A spot of bother”, I think having the blurb at the back will be useful:

At fifty-seven, George is settling down to a comfortable retirement, building a shed in his garden, reading historical novels, listening to a bit of light jazz. Then Katie, his unpredictable daughter, announces that she is getting remarried, to Ray. Her family is not pleased – as her brother Jamie observes, Ray has ‘strangler’s hands’. Katie can’t decide if she loves Ray, or loves the way he cared for her son Jacob, and her mother Jean is a bit put by the way the wedding planning gets in the way of her affair with one of her husband’s former colleagues. And the tidy, pleasant life Jamie has created crumbles when he fails to invite his lover, Tony, to the dreaded nuptials. 

Unnoticed in the uproar, George discovers a sinister lesion on his hip, and quietly begins to lose his mind

Well I can safely start by saying that these sorts of books are not usually my thing, and  I have almost finished it, but I feel like I want to write about it now. I like sci-fi, fantasy, mystery and an element of discovery. This book just seemed like a story about chaos unfolding within a family.

But I felt that it was a journey of discovery in its own right. The relationship between George, his wife Jean and her lover, David provides an insight into the relationships of the elderly that I haven’t had before. The self reflectiveness of Katie (George’s daughter), her concern for her son, Jacob and the relationship with soon-to-be-husband, Ray, is also interesting. But what I love most is how there are character clashes. For example George, as a middle class retired man, and Ray as a “working” class man from up north, a typical “bloke” who is big and all; one of my favourite passages in expressing their relationship is:

“[...]Ray had run his finger along the rack of CDs above the television and said, ‘So you’re a jazz fan, Mr Hall [meaning George]‘, and George had felt as if Ray unearthed a stack of pornographic magazines.”

I found it an amusing read, giving me a chuckle here and there, but as it progressed the mood slowly got darker and I felt a genuine pity, for George in particular, when he does to seemingly begin losing his mind.

But the most interesting journey of discovery when it comes to relationships is that of Jamie and his homosexuality. How the relationship plays out between himself and his lover, Tony, is intriguing because we always assign roles and stereotypes to males and females in relationships. But in a homosexual relationship, there is an element of mystery, especially if you had not experienced them yourself. I know that the homosexual community have romantic, sexual and even platonic relationships, just like the heterosexual community, but I never really had a close friend who was gay who would tell me about what it was like. I never really talked about it in detail to anyone, and I don’t think it was taboo for me, it was just that I, as a curious person, never had the opportunity.

This book ended up taking me by surprise with its own little journey of discovery, it was something that I thought would be mediocre for me but it turned out to be an excellent read and I can almost imagine it being played out like a film. The structure of the chapters, which simply represent scenes, really helps in achieving this and makes it much more enjoyable. But if you do plan to read chapter by chapter, then that does not really work, as some “scenes” are quite short (from less than a page to about three to four pages). The simple descriptions of what the characters do as they think, whether they put the kettle on or make some toast, is a really nice and subtle detail, not too overdone. I think I may have learned a thing or two about writing from reading this particular one. I definitely recommend it.

Now if you will excuse me, I am going to go back and finish it off!

Story planning – yEd and the structure of an army

I made a thread on a social networking site (Reddit) about the importance of writing out time lines for story planning.  A contributor recommended a piece of software called yEd for making quick diagrams and graphs (it is free!).

Now concerning my own work in progress, called the Circular Polis, I had already written a timeline on paper, and I generally find it better to write things on paper. However, there were other things to plan, and I decided to use this software to plan it. The precise aspect was the structure of my fictional army that belonged to the Polis, a modern dystopia state loosely based on Plato’s republic but with a dark twist.

Anyway here is the end result of my planning:

As you can see, the units themselves (beneath the squads, cavalries and bombardiers) are very Greek influence for obvious reasons.

Now on to the software itself. The basics of it is that I only had to spend at most a full comfortable hour before I mastered it, so there is no steep learning curve. It is quite intuitive to use and you can construct all sorts of programmes. As you can see on the link above, if you are still sceptical about using it then you can run it straight from the website by downloading a simple file (remember to have the latest version of Java installed).

But on a personal note, I quite enjoy writing things on paper instead of always using software. But it does have an advantage in that you can save the plans, save them as .jpeg images, and upload them on internet cloud systems such as dropBox or google docs.

Download it, try it out a little and do what is most comfortable in the end. Happy planning!

A book review – Terry Pratchett’s Thud! (take 2)

I have a motto for every reader out there and that is “if in doubt, pick up a Terry Pratchett book”

The greatest advantage of Terry Pratchett’s discworld series is that they can be read in any order. Not to mention that the Discworld is a colourful place filled to the brim with all of the mythological and fairytale creatures that we hear about. Only in this world, there is a certain twist to them. It is full of vampires, werewolves, golems, humans, witches, wizards and even Death himself (or itself). Many vampires, like Sally in this book, wear black ribbons as a sign from abstinence from human blood, while many werewolves, such as Angua, choose to pay farmers to set their chickens free so that they can chase them and let some steam off; a good alternative to tearing a human apart. His books tend to focus on some of these mystical species.

Dwarves and Trolls; this is what this book is essentially about. Set in the mystical cosmopolitan city of Ankh-Morpork, it is about the mystery murder of a Dwarf leader and the rising tensions between the Dwarfs and the Trolls, who historically hate each other.

And the commander of the Police force, or city watch as they are called, called Samuel Vimes is left to take care of all of it. It is up to him to solve the mystery before a violent Troll-Dwarf war occurs. As he races with his team to find the truth, maintain peace and order, as well as raising his child, it all culminates in yet another shocking discovery.

Now it all sounds serious and political, and in a sense there are serious messages within it. The historical aspect of the conflict between the Dwarves and Trolls reminded me of the real world irrational hate between ethnicities, one of the notorious ones being the Hutu and Tutsi in Rwanda which ended in a horrific genocide. But of course, it is not so one sided and dull, as Pratchett uses a combination of humour and real world parallels which are quite charming. The one thing I remember from the book clearly was a GooseBerry, a device obviously named after the Blackberry, that is owned by Samuel Vimes. It is also very much like a Blackberry in its functions; setting alarms, events, telling the time and carrying out mathematical calculations, except that it is not a simple machine, but a box that contains a mystic imp that speaks. Much more exciting than a machine with a screen.

That said, one major set back for me was a lack of chapters. The book seems to jump all over the place, leaving a lot to your imagination (I personally like that, but some readers may want to see the author’s descriptive skills) which gives it a sense of chaos. This is of course most likely intentionally planned by the author, but I would love to see more descriptive elements regarding the city of Ankh-Morpork itself. He does this in the earlier novels of Discworld, describing the smell, sounds, structure, and touch of the place.

One book is not enough to explore the world of Discworld, so once you finish this, then you will want to read every other Discworld book out there.

A book review – Terry Pratchett’s Thud!

On occasion, I like to go out and get myself a fun fictional book to read. Studying philosophy means that reading a light hearted work of fiction is a breath of fresh air compared to reading the dense original works of philosophers or even articles that comment on their original work.

Anyway, as usual, I stood in some bookshop with a dumb look about my face. I had no idea what to get, I didn’t know what I felt like reading and everything just seemed so bleh.

…And then I spotted Terry Pratchett’s book, Thud!

A smile crept over my face, a smile of pure glee. Here and there in my childhood, I have picked up Terry Pratchett’s books and not a single one of them has managed to disappoint me. The best part of his Discworld series is that they don’t need to be read in any order whatsoever. You can read any single one and it would make complete sense…Actually, I take that back because if you read a Discworld book of his the first thing you find out is that the world the stories are based on is supported by giant elephants…and the elephants are standing on a huge turtle…and the turtle is hurtling through space…

Not to mention there are vampires (some who abstain from human blood), werewolves (some who pay people to release chickens so they can chase them), witches, dwarfs and trolls and all kinds of things.

Ah yes, dwarfs and trolls! This is what this book is essentially about. It is about their historical hate for each other, and the mystery murder of a dwarf “leader” or “Grag”. The dwarfs serving under this leader immediately point their fingers at the trolls. Now this is mostly set in Ankh-Morpork, a metropolitan and cosmopolitan city in Discworld (and by Discworld’s standards too), and because the murder happened there, tensions rise really high between the two…ethnicities? No, two races, that’s the one. Mystical races, even.

And the commander of the Police force (or City Watch as they are called) called Samuel Vimes is left to take care of all of it. It is up to him to solve the mystery before a violent Troll-Dwarf war occurs. As he races with his team to find the truth, maintain peace and order, as well as raising his child, it all culminates in a historical discovery that will shock both troll and dwarf…and probably humans too…and everyone else caught in the middle of it really.

Now it all sounds serious and political, and in a sense there are serious messages within it, but Pratchett’s charm never fails to shine through with all of his humour. He actually makes me chuckle aloud, and people do look at me like I’m weird, but I admit that it is rare for an author of a book, just through the power of words, to make force me to make an audible noise of happiness at reading their work.

And once you read this book, then you will want to read every other Discworld book out there.

 

David Pratt’s “Intifada: a long day of rage” – a book review (take 2)

(I posted my previous book review to a social networking site where someone gave me some feed back. And so I am going to follow this feedback and see how I can improve on the review and maybe pull in more readers).

Intifada is an Arabic word that means to shake something off, and in the history of the Israeli Palestinian conflict it has the meaning of the Palestinian uprising against the Israeli military occupation in West Bank and Gaza. There were two Intifadas, one from 1987 – 1993 and another from the year 2000 – C.  2005.

The focus of this book is on these two Intifadas.  The journalist, David Pratt, did not simply sit on the seat and record what was on television, but he went down on the ground to where the “action” was happening to record what he saw and what he also thought of the matter. In the first Intifada he documents how the Palestinians dealt with the Israeli military, running into Hamas gunmen during the Organization’s infancy and the possible causes for exactly why an uprising had happened then. As for the second Intifada, he goes back on the ground witnessing Israel’s notorious Operation Defensive Shield in an attempt to crush the uprising, the chilling background of Palestinian suicide bombers and how they carried out their operations, and an interview with the prominent Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti among other things.

One part of the book gives a brief but good history of Yasser Arafat, the former leader of the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) which was the dominating secular political group from its founding in 1964 until the end of the first Intifada. After that, the book documents the rise of Hamas (an Islamic Palestinian political party) to power in Gaza in 2007 and the post second intifada world in general, including the development of the Israeli “security barrier” or “Apartheid wall” between the West Bank and Israel.

Make no mistake that David Pratt is not mechanical in his writing in that he does stir emotions. You do not get a sense that he is either pro-Palestinian or pro-Israeli, but a humanitarian instead, with friends both from Israel and Palestine with whom he asks of their opinions on certain issues. I imagine that even for one who is not that interested in the Palestinian Israeli conflict, it would be interesting to read of the journalists experiences in places such as Jerusalem, Jenin, Bethlehem and Ramallah (keep in mind, if you are not familiar with these names it is good to have a map of Palestine and Israel at hand just to get a geographical sense). The book is a good blend of humanitarian activism, personal narrative and documentary. If you are sick of reading history books that sound a bit too impersonal then this is definitely worth a read.

(David Pratt, Intifada: a long day of rage) ISBN – 1-904684-16-5
Sunday Herald Books.