Murder in the Name of Honor

My girlfriend is an International Affairs major, and she dropped off a bunch of books for me to sell a couple months ago. Me being me, they're still sitting on my desk, yet to be put online (sorry honey). So in that wonderful pile of books, I found Murder in the Name of Honor by Rana Husseini. It's about a journalist from Jordan, for those of you geographically challenged it's in the Middle East under Syria and in between Israel and Iraq. This journalist, the author, is sticking her neck out and checking out something that everyone else refused to talk about: honor killings.

Basically, the book chronicles the final moments and aftermath of the victims of honor killings: family members killing another family member to regain the family's honor. It's sickening. I can't imagine killing my sister or my wife or my daughter because of something that they did: marrying the wrong man, falling in love with the wrong person, coming home pregnant, losing her virginity, or even being raped.

Now before everyone comes out and says that it's part of their culture out there in the Middle East, I'll tell you that it supposedly happens all throughout Europe, especially the UK, and in the US.

I'm fascinated. It should be a good read, I mean I'm already excited about it and I've only read the forward. It's only 200 or so pages and my girlfriend read it in only two days, but I'm expecting to do it in a week, maybe. We'll see. And I'll report back to my aspiring readers whether it's worth your time.

Angels and Demons

Laying around in my aunt's basement on its way to goodwill, it was the perfect start to my summer reading list, my aunt even recommended it. A month beforehand, my girlfriend had suggested a Dan Brown book, but I said that I wouldn't be reading anything written by him because of his "semi-historical" stories; I said it would be a waste of my time. I didn't know how wrong I was until I started reading.

Flying through the air in what sounded like a futuristic plane, challenging concepts, and "discovering" the past, I quickly forgot that I was reading a fiction, a "semi-historical" book; the history had very little to do with the detective work I followed, uncovering one piece of the puzzle at a time. Angels and Demons guided me through a crusade against the Roman Catholic Church that never ended, following in the footsteps of prospective Illuminati of Renaissance Italy.

The sharp debate between science and religion heralded as a major battle, surviving time, and threatening to end Rome, held the center of attention in the story.

Can God and science live together? There were those that felt that the two could not possibly mix, there were some that felt God destroyed the advances science has made: He was only created as a way to control the masses and to force many to follow a doctrine without challenging it. And then there were some who felt science challenged God, His creation, His meaning: as science gets more precise and explains more mysteries, God ends up playing a smaller role, until eventually, even God is explained, leaving no higher power and the Church only a pile of rocks with people of the past. Then, there was Leonardo Vetra. A priest and one of the most advanced scientists in his time, he was the perfect balance. He explained God through science, saw His beauty in the miracles of slim odds that created and shaped our universe. He was a great way for the Church to head towards, he would be the guide for where the Pope will go in regards to science and religion.

With your own detective work, mastered from watching CSI or Columbo (win if you know that show, it's one of my favorite), you work with an American Scholar, an old guy that teaches at Harvard. Don't let my description fool you, he's pretty good, incredibly smart, and he even surprised me with what he was able to do physically. Your investigation brings you through some of the most secret places, areas of the Vatican that very few know about, let alone see. And you discover it all: secret passage ways, secret messages, and a trail around the city of Rome that you can go travel now, after you read this book. It involves grisly murders and omg moments where I was literally cheering for that old American. The best part: an ending that goes from an OMG to a "I just shit my pants". It's insane. It's good. Really good.

So in case you haven't read anything I said, I liked it. It was a great read, even for me. I was surprised and I was proven wrong. I definitely recommend this book.

Make sure to vote on the next book you think I should read, comment on your thoughts about science and religion, and check out my new page which will be full of reviews on all the books I've read....eventually.

My Summer Reading List

Usually, upon graduation of high school, people forget about summer reading lists. Summer is either full with classes, a job, an internship, or just vegging out. I usually chose the latter and conjoined it with a part-time job.

Summer reading lists were something that elementary school kids or high-schoolers did; I was in college, a place where I can take the summer off and play Xbox all day, every day, if I wanted to.

I never did read much. Starting in 8th Grade, I discovered that I could just not read and still get by. It continued in high school, the worst at sophomore year where I believe I read most of one book and half of another. In total, it was a little more than one book that I read that year; one book out of eight. Senior year I had a much better English teacher where I read all but one book (senioritis kicked in at that point). And for summer reading all those years, I always seemed to miss one book, but the school made it easy on me with a pass/fail system that allowed me to miss that one required reading and still get that 100 to show the parents.

So why start now?

Not only am I starting now, but I'm starting over. My years of half-ass reading are going out the door and I'm going to start anew.

My girlfriend is an avid reader. She's a beast and can read through an entire book in a couple hours. I cannot. It takes me awhile, maybe around a month if I'm good at it and keep to it. But, she has inspired me to read, to take adventures through the many pages of a mystery, be enthralled in a fantasy, and to like a book a whole lot more than a movie.

In April, I decided to challenge myself. This 20 something year old created my first summer reading list full of titles by Locke, Mark Twain, John Grisham, Charlotte Bronte, Shakespeare, J.D. Salinger, and even J.K. Rowling. Now its October and I've read a total of one book (more on that later) but I thought I would share my story with the world. I want to take you on my journey. I want to inspire others to read and show people that even though you're not the fastest reader, it shouldn't stop you from reading.

Throughout my journey, I'm going to keep updates, let you know what I think of the books I read and hopefully I can inspire someone else, a fellow once non-reader, to pick up a book and to challenge themselves. I ask you to comment, tell me your story, tell me what you thought of the books I've read, and suggest others for me to read.