Middle East Archives – Rebecca Reads

Harlem Renaissance: Fiction for February and Other Yearly Reading Ideas

January 31, 2012 by Rebecca Reid

I am trying very hard to not be too ambitious in my reading plans for the year. That said, I really enjoyed how my January has been focused on Shakespeare and Charles Dickens this month, reading both biographies of the men and some of their works.

I decided to revisit the Harlem Renaissance during the month of February. I am not currently running the Classics Circuit, but one of my favorite Classics Circuits of the past was February 2010 when I learned all about the great literature of the Harlem Renaissance. I have not been very diligent at revisiting those works I really want to read, so this year, I’m going to try to read a few novels. I have a volume of five Harlem Renaissance novels out from the library. Continue Reading

(Kids Corner) Some Cybils 2011 Books about … Fairy Tales, Folklore, and Fantasy

November 21, 2011 by Rebecca Reid

Time is running out this year, so some of my categories for my discussion of the Cybils awards may seem a bit of a stretch. The fairy tales books I share about below are quite different from the folkloric books I also share about.

Nevertheless, despite the slightly messy attempts at categorization, I have enjoyed so many of these books I’ve been reading. I hope you find something below that may interest you as well.Continue Reading

Palestine by Joe Sacco

October 27, 2008 by Rebecca Reid

I spent two months in Jerusalem in 2000 as part of a religious study abroad experience. While our focus was on Old and New Testament Biblical studies, I also got a healthy dose of Jewish and Palestinian history and religious information. I loved my time there and I loved the people I met – Jew, Muslim, and Christian.

When I found Palestine, Joe Sacco’s journalistic report of the intifada circa 1992, I thought I’d experience another graphic novel, this time an account of a place I’ve lived. But the world Sacco explores is not the world I visited.

Sacco’s account focuses on the horrible conditions of the Palestinian refugees in Israel, the torture of the Isreali Defense Forces, and the reasons why the youth felt the need to rise up in rebellion in the intifada. While I can’t say I loved the blatant anti-Jewish slant of the book (which was to be expected), it was a fascinating experience to read it and I learned a lot that I hadn’t realized.Continue Reading

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