Books: River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh

[smittenbyu]

River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh (part of the Ibis Trilogy)

The first book of the trilogy, Sea of Poppies, I had picked up at the library randomly on the "new books" shelf some time ago. Really liked the books - both of them! It's a slow paced book, kind of like a sea journey I imagine, but filled with a lot of stories. It was so very interesting to learn and read about times of yesteryears in the Asian region. And even back then the huge impact China had on world economy. Duh! I know, nothing surprising, but it's a part of history I never got to learn in school. Cultural bias of international schools? Where all you learn is of western hemisphere. We did touch a little on Indian independence and the only time we ever jumped to South East Asia was the Korean War & Vietnam wars and China was always the bad guy.

Obviously this is fiction. But is based on correspondence left behind by the protagonist in the story, Neel. I can't wait for the third part to come out!

I picked another random book from the library: The Round House by Louise Erdrich. I didn't even notice the big "New York Times bestseller" sign on the front cover.

Another random book I picked at the library while my daughter was singing loudly in the library was Susan Cain's Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking Just amazing! I don't think a book has touched me as much as it did this! I bought her book! There's so much to write about here! I read this 3-4 months ago and have been wanting to write down many of my thoughts over it. Just never got down to it. Maybe one day. I was crying over every page!! A must read for everyone, an extrovert or an introvert! 

Comments

[echomyst.livejournal.com]

Cultural bias in many schools in many countries, I'd imagine.we hardly touched on world history on my schools... I actually don't recall learning about ancient history except in terms of Roman and Greek mythologies. My mom taught me Chinese history but I found a lot of it difficult to understand because of the Chinese terminologies (I'm not very good at reading Chinese having grown up mostly in Toronto and not exposed to it at school).

I thought it was you who'd mentioned that quiet book a while back! or it could've been someone else.but now will have to check it out.