Subtitled "Behind the scenes in the world's richest city," this is a book about Abu Dhabi, the wealthiest state of the United Arab Emirates. Abu Dhabi is both a state and the name of its major city, a sister city to Dubai, which is only a two-hour drive away.
The average net worth of the 430,000 citizens of Abu Dhabi in 2008-09 when this book was written was $17 million. The author points out that not everyone is this wealthy, but the people of Abu Dhabi are generally very comfortable, and many of them are wealthy beyond imagination.
Tatchell grew up in Abu Dhabi with expatriate, consultant parents, and now has returned to see an amazing shift from the nomadic culture of the past to a vibrant and very ambitious city. The wealth comes at an enormous cost. She describes the moral abyss of a generation of wealthy young Abu Dhabians who reach ever lower in their boredom and cynicism. The state is highly regulated, with both laws and an unspoken culture that prohibit criticism. A fascinating book.
October 13, 2014
October 10, 2014
Running for the Hills: Growing up on my Mother's Sheep Farm in Wales by Horatio Clare
This is a gorgeously written biography. Before he was born, Horatio Clare's parents bought a sheep farm in Wales as sort of a hobby farm/retreat from their jobs as journalists in London. His mother fell in love with the farm, but his father didn't. Eventually she and their two sons stayed at the farm, at the cost of her marriage.
The struggles were tremendous - the house was a wreck, she was an impractical and horribly messy but very outgoing and popular farmer, and there was never enough money. But the descriptions of the natural beauty of the countryside are amazing, Dylan Thomas-style, and the sheep, even to a non-animal-lover like myself, are appealing, sometimes pathetic, sometimes hilarious characters all by themselves, bringing to mind James Herriot's tales, set in a similar landscape.
The author skilfully sharpens the focus on the dynamics between his parents, and on the picture of his father, mirroring a child's growing awareness of what's really going on, and whose fault it might be (both, in this case.)
I looked forward to this book every night and was sad when it ended. I hope he has written some more.
The struggles were tremendous - the house was a wreck, she was an impractical and horribly messy but very outgoing and popular farmer, and there was never enough money. But the descriptions of the natural beauty of the countryside are amazing, Dylan Thomas-style, and the sheep, even to a non-animal-lover like myself, are appealing, sometimes pathetic, sometimes hilarious characters all by themselves, bringing to mind James Herriot's tales, set in a similar landscape.
The author skilfully sharpens the focus on the dynamics between his parents, and on the picture of his father, mirroring a child's growing awareness of what's really going on, and whose fault it might be (both, in this case.)
I looked forward to this book every night and was sad when it ended. I hope he has written some more.
Under the Spell of the Yukon by Enid Mallory
A well-written and highly personal biography of Robert Service. Although I'm not a huge fan of his poetry, who can resist a rousing recitation of "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" or "The Cremation of Sam McGee," poems with which my friend Wendy has occasionally regaled our writer's group.
The author persistently tries to get at who this man was - what made him tick. Service was an odd combination of rather shy bank clerk and absolutely crazy adventurer. He mostly got his poems from listening to people's stories, first in Scotland where he was born, then in California and the American Midwest, then on Vancouver Island and finally in the Yukon where he arrived just at the tail end of the gold rush and wrote his most famous works.
He became wealthy enough to live off the royalties from his books of poems, and it was during his early retirement that he took a bizarre trip from Edmonton north through the NWT and finally entering Yukon from the far north. It was a trip that most natives said could not be done, and that he would die if he tried it alone. He survived, gleaning further material for his poetry.
I really liked this book. It is fast-paced, and has lots of nice sharp pictures. It's inspirational because although he was kind of a bland guy, his work was anything but.
The author persistently tries to get at who this man was - what made him tick. Service was an odd combination of rather shy bank clerk and absolutely crazy adventurer. He mostly got his poems from listening to people's stories, first in Scotland where he was born, then in California and the American Midwest, then on Vancouver Island and finally in the Yukon where he arrived just at the tail end of the gold rush and wrote his most famous works.
He became wealthy enough to live off the royalties from his books of poems, and it was during his early retirement that he took a bizarre trip from Edmonton north through the NWT and finally entering Yukon from the far north. It was a trip that most natives said could not be done, and that he would die if he tried it alone. He survived, gleaning further material for his poetry.
I really liked this book. It is fast-paced, and has lots of nice sharp pictures. It's inspirational because although he was kind of a bland guy, his work was anything but.
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