roach's reviews
268 reviews

 

[(Re-)translated from my German copy.]

A bit difficult to review a book like this so bear with me as I air out some of my thoughts if you really care what I think. But be aware that I recommend this book either way as I think it does have a lot of good information about the current state of the Palestine-Israel conflict and I'm convinced it is written with good intent, giving equal examination of all parties involved.
I am very confused though as to why there seemingly only exists this German translation but not an English original when Ron Leshem is an Israeli-American author. That seems very odd to me.
But enough about that...

In a later part of the book, Leshem writes about misinformation spread online and radicalization based on untrustworthy, unquestioned sources. "Opinion engineering" is certainly a thing, as becomes more noticeable in the current day of vast digital information. It is important to be aware of the what you read and engage with it critically.
Ironically that's exactly why part of me was slightly cautious/skeptical about the author being an experienced screenwriter and ex-member of Israel's Intelligence Corps when I picked this book up originally. From a cynical point of view, that seemed like a prime concoction for biased narration.
But as I skimmed the book in the store, I did find rather quickly that Leshem is clearly not fully condemning or gloryfing either Israeli or Palestinians but calls out faults and bad actors on all sides of this messy situation. Having read the book in full now, I am glad I didn't let my initial suspicions stop me from giving this book a proper chance.

But let me start with my criticisms, since that aforementioned section of the book about propaganda and disinformation spread through social media, specifically when it comes to the leftist activism of the West, was one of the few sections of the book I did actually have some gripes with.
Not that it isn't fair to critically analyze that sort of thing. But it felt, almost uncharacteristically so compared to the rest of the book, pretty reductive and cynical, missing an attempt to understand and/or argue the rise of radical one-sided Palestine-focused activism and the popular allegations against the Israeli government in a more constructive way. Especially since Leshem himself has clear criticisms against the Israel government and their actions as well. It felt a bit off that there wasn't more engagement there as it's probably also one of the most crucial parts of this conflict from a global point of view.
That part of the book was a bit bumpy since the whole subject of "radicalization through social media" definitely deserves a lot more nuance than I felt it was given there. Thankfully he picks that general subject up again in an even later part of the book and digs a bit deeper that time.

Another nitpicky gripe I had is that I would have liked more information about how the early chapters, which chronicle the events of October 7th 2023, were reconstructed in such a highly detailed way. I understand that the attack is apparently one of the most filmed tragedy in history with cameras carried by soldiers, terrorists, and civilians all around, but some of the details were so minute that I couldn't tell how factual the narration of it was.
At the end of the book, Leshem does say a little bit more about how the information was sourced, but I would have welcomed it earlier and appreciated even more information about that process itself.

All of that being said, I think Leshem does a mostly very good job at making it clear that he isn't blindly loyal to his country of Israel but very much supports the Palestinian civilians that suffer from the conflict just as much as Israelis. He rightfully condemns the devastating attacks by Hamas but also harshly looks at the Israeli government that's veering more and more towards the radical right and has failed its citizens more than once.
Despite how unlikely the realization might seem currently, he also dedicates a later chapter to detailing a potential way of how it could come to a peaceful two-state solution.

But the real meat and potatoes of this book are the conflict itself and how the two opposing sides, steered by increasingly more ruthless leaders, seemingly have caught themselves in an endless spiral towards radicalization.

I think as with all books about a complicated matter like this, you shouldn't take every word for the immediate, solitary truth and interact with it critically. But I do believe, like I said at the beginning, that Leshem is acting with good intent and wrote a generally very informative book.
As always it's best to engage with more than one voice and it goes without saying that learning about the 1948 Nakba deserves its own time as well, but if you'd only read one book about the Palestine-Israel conflict, this one would probably not be a bad pick, especially while it's still up-to-date. 

 

[Quote (re-)translated from my German copy.]

This is a tie-in product to a TV show called Northern Exposure that I know next to nothing about except that my mom apparently watched it when it ran on TV in the 90s. Apparently she bought this book at some point and somehow it ended up on my book shelf over time with me being mildly curious as to what kind of literature my mom, who never cared much for books, made an exception for.
When a challenge I'm doing with a friend included the category of "a book recommendation from your mom", this one became my pick for it.

Letters from Cicely has a couple things going for it that I actually found very intriguing going in. For one, the whole story being set in a small town of ice-cold Alaska is something I'm very much down for. The plot revolving about a strange phenomenon that keeps the inhabitants of that town awake for months is also pretty interesting. And lastly, the entire story being told through the letters the town's inhabitants send out to the rest of the world is a unique touch.
Unfortunately that's basically where my interests ended because the actual content of the book did not really agree with me.

The book, probably to stay true to its soap opera roots, is focused more on the bickering drama between the quirky characters than the plot. Problem is, I didn't really find a lot of these characters interesting and some of them even outright unlikeable. For example, the male protagonist Joel, who serves as the fish-out-of-water element by being a city doctor banished to work in this backwoods town, is insanely unlikeable. I get that a main-draw of the show was probably the will-they-won't-they back-and-forth between him and the town's local pilot, Maggie. But he is just such a despicable nonstop asshole that I couldn't find a single reason to believe that Maggie could give a rat's ass about him or think that I should root for Joel myself.
There is also this odd age-gap couple with an 18 years old girl being with a 63 years old man, which caught me off-guard when it came up the first time. Didn't really seem like there was much of a point to that either.

A major plot element is also that people just get unreasonable angry at other characters due to lack of sleep, which just resulted in even more bickering but with even less of a reason for it. That felt lazy and contrived. Especially since characters constantly recognize that they're angry at others for literally no good reason.
From what I gathered, this book is loosely based on a specific episode of the show where the town's inhabitants weren't able to sleep for a stretch of time due to different reasons than the ones in the book. I could see the extra aggravation make for some decent entertainment if you're already familiar with the characters and it only goes on for one brief episode. But in this book it was rather grating and felt very repetitive pretty quickly.

In the end, the strange situation resolves just as came on, and the story ends with the will-they-won't-they pair on one and the same page due to being victims of the same circumstance despite 250 pages of pure hatred between them both beforehand.
As someone who has no prior experience with this show, I feel more put off by it than I was before. Not that I think it sounds like the worst thing ever. But it does seem very quaint and not like my kind of humor at all. Maybe it needs the actual performances from the actors on the show to make the dialog work for me but in its written form, this didn't do much for me.
Bits of it felt like Twin Peaks without the good writing or interesting plot and given that that show is mentioned in this book at least ones, I wonder if that's actually somewhat intentional.

Anyway, this wasn't the most painful thing ever but I'm glad I got through this. I also can't blame my mom for not really remembering any of this these days. Maybe that's for the better. lol 

 

[Translated from German.]

Essentially, this book is nothing but a series of e-mails between these two journalists that have close personal and professional ties to the Israel-Palestine conflict. The selling point is that both have quite different viewpoints on the situation but manage to find understanding regardless as they exchange their criticisms and hopes.
It's a good read, that, I feel, includes some good talking points, some of them refreshingly point-blank (even if not purely objective of course). It makes for a thought-provoking conversation to "overhear", giving room for different perspectives while essentially striving for a common ground.

 

I was very interested in the initial premise of some journalists failing to get a survivor of the Nakba to talk about his experience of the tragedy during an interview, and then reeling from the consequences. The first third or so of the book was very strong with fairly interesting characters and different perspectives on what it means to be Palestinian these days.
Unfortunately the story lost itself a bit too much in the romantic obsession of one of the least interesting characters as it made that too big of an element in the overall story for my taste, derailing the truly captivating parts too much. There is also some weak drama instigation later on that caught me off-guard as it didn't even really seem necessary.

Still, there are some good characters here and the initial premise is interesting. I was definitely curious to how it would all end and like I said, there are interesting explorations here and there about the Palestinian experience, and generally about how we talk about historic and personal trauma. 

 

(Quote translated from German.)

Karin Schneider's portrait of pigeons is a textbook example of an animal that is suffering greatly from humans' egocentric perception of its usefulness to them.
After being one of civilization's most beloved and useful companions for centuries in several ways, pigeons were eventually discarded and are now demonized for "invading our space".

This book lovingly chronicles the history of the relationship between us humans and this bird in a fairly breezy but insightful way, and explores how we eventually pushed this unfair reputation onto them to justify our cruelty. Pigeons might be one of the biggest example for this phenomenon and their story is fascinating, but there are plenty of animals out there that we treat similarly and so this book becomes a lot more meaningful and important if one wants to live in harmony with the world we inhabit.
It's an engaging and easy read with lots of beautiful illustrations, and probably a must-read at least for city folk. It hopefully makes plenty of people re-evaluate how they think about the animals that we share this planet with.

Go and feed your local pigeons. With proper seeds and nuts, not bread and junk food.
They're ancestors of our communal pets and every insult someone throws their way is because of the desperate situation we have put them in. You might feel inconvenienced by them, but they are the actual victim here. 

This definitely has some very cool elements. The art is often gorgeous and comes with some great visual ideas that really make the autumnal aesthetic pop out. The story is quite decent as well with some charming character.
But it is also a bit basic and ending in a rather obvious way. I think this could have needed a couple more chapters to flesh out the mystery and some of the characters a bit more, or go into a completely different direction altogether near the end. 

 

Rifqa is a really captivating collection of poetry with strong emotions, interesting use of language, and unique structures. All of it centering around the Palestinian experience with a through-line of El-Kurd's grandma, who this book is named after.

Some of my favorite bits were "Who Lives in Sheik Jarrah?", an erasure poem made out of a New York Times article, and "This Is Why We Dance", which also exists as a spoken word piece on streaming platforms. 

 

Kai Cheng Thom takes a good, hard but loving look at the queer and social justice communities - both of which she considers herself part of - and airs out her thoughts in the form of constructive criticism.
In a time when terms like "social justice" is used mostly in a derogatory way and terms like "woke" are thrown around like slurs, it's actually really refreshing to read a voice, that treats this subject and these activist aspirations with respect and dignity. Kai Cheng Thom manages to articulate some ugly truths that a lot of people would rather turn a blind eye to, which ends up self-sabotaging a community that ultimately aims for fairness and equity.
There are a lot of really interesting points in here about, for example, how experienced trauma gets glorified and wielded as a weapon, about how the reductive, binary view of perpetrator and victim roles do not help understand and solve the root causes of violence, about the unproductiveness of a reactionary, punitive justice, and of course about the importance of compassion towards all members of society.
After all, we ultimately have to "transform systems that centre getting even into systems that prioritize getting better," as she writes.

You don't have to wholeheartedly agree with all of Thom's points but I believe there are a lot of thought-provoking and valid points to mull over in here, written with a voice that's caring and clearly hopeful. 

 

(Translated from German.)

I really don't know when I last read a German horror novel and it was interesting when parts of this felt like a mix of Kafka and Lovecraft. The introspective lives of troubled family members dealing with their own aspirations and worries, including a hefty dose of father issues, and the mysterious, uncertain, but deadly cult-like community surrounded by strange birds. It makes for some cool writing here and there. I also really liked the idea of the book being split up in sections where we follow a different family member on their own individual journey of coming in touch with the same esoteric bird cult.
Unfortunately, it also becomes a bit repetitive later on and although there are a couple stronger highlights in the individual sections, it doesn't really manage to find a truly satisfying finale to all of the character work. It fizzles out more than it goes out with a bang.
Still a solid read but probably not one I'll remember much. 

 

Pappé's book seems to me like a thorough chronological documentation of the titular ethnic cleansing of Palestine that is the crux of one of the most tenacious and inflamed conflicts still raging on today. Drawing from sources like Israeli documents, Ben Gurion's own diary, as well as statements from both Israeli soldiers and Palestinian survivors, it puts together a pretty extensive account of the years around crucial 1948.

As a reader who didn't know most of the details, this felt like a good deeper introduction to the whole subject, though it also raised even more questions. Which at least in part simply stems from how hard it is to swallow that all of this was allowed to play out with seemingly minimal interference from the outside. I think my one true criticism towards this book would be that I wish there were more details about how and why British soldiers in Palestine have been apparently so passive, and maybe a bigger focus on international perception and action in general.