Book 25 for 2026: “Atlas of Borders: Walls, Migrations, and Conflicts in 70 Maps”, Delphine Papin and Bruno Tertrais

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This book is way more than the maps. It starts with Borders Throughout History going back to ancient times when borders were not clearly defined. Modern borders emerged with modern cartography. The “more detailed the map, the more accurately boundaries can be drawn.” Cultural borders based on religion, language and such rarely align with actual modern borders. Think about places you know and who lives there and the cultural and religious differences. The first maps show Borders in Six Stages delineating the changing borders before 1800 to current borders.

The next set shows Borders and Civilizations–what we often refer to as Western Civilization, Latin American, Orthodox Christian, Islamic, African, Hindu, Sinic, Buddhist, Japanese. This view started with the book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order (1996). In many ways this Atlas is also a history book on how various agreements and treaties affect boundary changes. An example is the map of the results of The Sykes-Picot Agreement. It also includes the legacy of the British Empire and how this affected borders over time.

I had not thought much about how even after colonialism, Europe still has some over seas territories, mostly islands over which wars have been fought even though many have never heard of them. The book includes maps and discussion on border disputes in Latin America as well as other parts of the world. There is another section on sea borders and those disputes continue today, e.g. the Arctic which many countries try to claim. And then there is the Persian Gulf with detailed illustrations of the Strait of Hormuz and all the islands there. I had forgotten that Bahrain is an island until I read this book.

There are too many sections to detail here, but the maps of the South China Sea and the disputes involving China there are very illustrative of just how complex claims by countries can be.

When I think of walls, I think of Berlin Wall and its fall and the disputes in US over walls between US and Mexico, but there are others in the world–Morocco, the Koreas. There is a map illustrating all the places where walls exist today. There are more than 70 closed borders protected by a wall or fence. The number of barriers is rising. The book not only lists them but how high they are in meters. Then so many disputed borders still exist that the maps and lists take up two pages of lists.

There is so much interesting information in this book that I cannot recommend it enough for anyone interested in history and current affairs.

Book 24 for 2026: “Glory Be”, Danielle Arceneaux

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This is a murder mystery set in Lafayette, Louisiana. The main character is an older Black lady who spends Sunday afternoons after church at the local coffee shop helping gamblers with their sports betting. While there, she learns that her best friend, a nun, has been found dead in her apartment. The police insist it is a suicide, but Glory knows that cannot be and sets out to find out what really occurred and who the murderer is. Her daughter, a classy NYC attorney, is visiting. She is very reluctant to join her mother’s quest but eventually agrees to help. Together they begin to investigate. After Glory is bitten by a pit bull under scary circumstances. receives a package full of bees which sting her and send her to the hospital, and other unexpected occurrences, Glory’s daughter realizes her mother may be correct about this being a murder, not a suicide. Their investigation leads them to the trailer house of a priestess, the grounds of a notorious drug dealer, etc.

Glory has grown up during segregation and is used to being overlooked and dismissed. Although she is in many ways a very traditional woman with traditional values, she is determined to do right by her friend. This leads her to places she would never n normally go and encounter people she would normally avoid.

I rarely read murder mysteries but since this is a book in a book club to which I belong, I read it anyway. It was an enjoyable read, sometimes funny, and certainly a glimpse into bayou culture about which I know little. I think there is a sequel so might look for it since I enjoyed Glory’s spunk and determination.

Book 23 for 2026: “The House of Islam: A Global History”, Ed Husain

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While waiting for a requested book to arrive at the library, I found this one and decided to read it. Because of personal interest I already knew quite a lot of about different types of Islam and some of the history, but this book goes into great detail explaining the founding and history of different groups, e.g. Sunni including different groups within Sunni Islam, Sufi, Shia. Sunni groups vary greatly from more mainstream to the very strict fundamentalism of the Salafis/Wahhabis which is the group controlling Saudi Arabia. The Shia are predominantly in Iran, Iraq, some of Syria, and are minorities in most of the Gulf States as well as Saudi Arabia. Sufis can be found all over the Muslim world, and in the West people often equate them with the whirling dervishes.

A bit of history many in the West do not know is how Mohamed Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, the founder of Wahhabism, joined with the ancestor of the current Saudi rulers to conquer and control all of Saudi Arabia in the 1700s. This extreme conservative part of Islam is still the rule and law in Saudi Arabia. It is such a potent force in the world today because Saudi Arabia has spent billions to export their preferred form of Islam across the world. Osama bin Laden belonged to this group of Muslims. They have built mosques and training schools all over the world. Some adherents feel it is their obligation to kill others who do not agree with them including other Muslims. al-Wahab’s book, Kitab al-Tawhid, The Book of Oneness, dominates the global market and promotes this strict form of Islam. It is from this form of Islam that ISIS and other groups have arisen. Most Sunni Muslims in the world do not adhere to this form of Islam. Many people do not realize that the majority of Muslims are not Arabs.

The author also explains the rise in jihadism with recommendations on how to deal with Islamic extremism. Part of this goes into the history of early Islam when for hundreds of years much of the progress in a lot of the world was via Muslim science, mathematics, literature, etc. Part Three details The Rise of the West and the Loss of Muslim Confidence which has led to anger and frustration and a strong sense of humiliation which has lead to much of the extremism occurring now and recently.

Although I do not agree with some of the author’s statements and claims because of what I know from Muslims I do know, I highly recommend this book. I think many people in the West have little to no knowledge regarding Muslims, the history, etc. Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world currently and it behooves people to gain understanding.

Book 22 for 2026: “A Guardian and a Thief”, Megha Majumdar

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In the not too distant future the city of Kolkata in India is besieged with floods and famine. Ma, her elderly father, and two year old daughter are preparing to emigrate to the US where her husband has a good professional job. This is one of the families in the story. The other is a poor family from the Sundarban struggling to stay alive while the oldest son, Boomba, has gone to Kolkata to try to earn enough to save his family.

In the two weeks time of this novel, Boomba, driven to desperation and holding a secret about Ma, breaks into Ma’s house and steals her purse which contains the passports for her, her father, and her child. Both her actions previous to his, her current actions, and Boomba’s lead both down paths they could never have previously dreamed with dire consequences for all.

Due to the flooding and famine, everyone in the city is desperate except for the one billionaire who has stayed. Their desperation leads some to behave in undesirable ways, but the main “lesson” of this novel illustrates how just one action by one person can lead to dire consequences for two entire families and possibly others as well–actions have consequences you can never begin to imagine. Be careful.

Book 21 for 2026: “Hurricane Season”, Fernanda Melchor

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The inside of the front cover informs the potential reader that this is a novel about a world steeped in mythology and violence, set in a small town in rural southeastern Mexico. The violence part is extreme, the kind of violence that only sometimes pervades a lot of small, rural, poverty ridden towns everywhere in the world. Written in a style reminiscent of Faulkner (I read a translation from the Spanish), each chapter tells the main story from a different perspective, the story leading up to and the death of the Witch who is found floating in the water of a canal. She is called the Witch but no one for sure seems to know her gender, where she attained the money to build such a huge house, and how she manages to entertain with lavish abandon. People both avoid her and are drawn to her.

There is the grandmother who thinks her wayward grandson can do no wrong while blaming her daughter ( the child’s mother) for everything and anything, there is his friend whom he both loves and hates, their is the poor girl he aids and loves who has been groomed and impregnated by her stepfather and has run away because of it, the engineer who loves boys and men, the woman who makes her living as a fancy prostitute to support her disabled husband and on and on it goes–people harming each other out of anger and frustration with their dire circumstances. For some of the characters, the writing is first person so the reader learns the interworkings of those mentally harmed by their life’s poverty and environment from which there appears to be no escape.

This is not a novel for the faint of heart.

Book 20 for 2026: “Ransom”, David Malouf

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When I was in the eighth grade, I asked my parents for two books for Christmas, “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey”. I am sure even then there was a more modern version but they chose Dryden’s translation which was basically 17th century British. It took me a while, but I read them both even though I often had to resort to using the dictionary to learn all the words I had never seen before. My favorite then and now is “The Iliad”, the story of Achilles and the Trojan War. Since then, I have read more books than I can count about Achilles and the war, including this one and three recently by Pat Barker, which I wrote about on this blog.

David Malouf focuses on two characters, Achilles and Priam and one singular event, Priam’s decision to disguise himself as an ordinary person, hire an ordinary man with an ordinary cart, and go to the Greek camp and beg Achilles for Hector’s body. The only other main character in the book is the cart driver who likes to talk and share. From him Priam sees another view of life and experiences some new simple things, like cooling your feet in a stream, eating ordinary food. Priam suddenly realizes he has missed much of life’s meaning since, as king, he has been shielded from the lives of most people. The book includes Priam’s thoughts, those of the cart driver, and Achilles’. This is not an action thriller novel. It is the story of three people and their thoughts and reactions to this one event.

Book 19 for 2026: “An Unnecessary Woman”, Rabih Alameddine

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Aaliya Saleh, 72, lives alone in an apartment in Beirut. Her obsession is reading books and translating books into Arabic. Every January she starts a new translation. Upon completion, she stores the translation in a box and puts it in the spare bedroom. No one ever sees them or reads them. Her family members envy her large apartment because she is divorced and has no children–her brothers think they should have it because they are married and have children. Her mother is a difficult woman and has become stricken with mild dementia. Written in first person, Aaliya relates her life as she sees it. Her impotent husband walks out and she is fine with this because he is a difficult person. Living alone she is able to defy norms and customs and lives as she chooses, a reclusive life for the most part except for her decades long job running a small bookstore. During her telling in the novel she is now retired with some relatively minor aches and pains. She has managed to live as she chooses in spite of the Civil War, repeated bombing by the Israelis, and other difficulties. Toward the end, an unthinkable disaster occurs that threatens what she views as her life’s purpose.

This character’s prodigious reading and knowledge of literature and authors inspired me to look up authors I had not read, learn more about them, and go to the bookstore and library in search of some of the books she discusses in the novel. It also made me think more about how societies see women as unnecessary (or worse) if they fail to comply with societal norms. This novel’s setting may be Beirut, but it could be anywhere in the world in terms of the price women often pay when they defy cultural norms and live as they choose.

Balinese Gamelan Music and Dancing

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Earlier this week I attended a concert at Pomona College. I do not recall ever hearing Gamelan music before. Gamelan is percussion music. In fact the word means percussion orchestra. The instruments used in this performance are called gong kebyar. The instruments are made of bronze, iron, or bamboo. This music sounds nothing like European music. The instruments are tuned to a very high pitch and deliberately what one might consider out of tune. This is intentional. Pomona College has its own gamelan ensemble. Musicians and dancers from The Californian Institute of the Arts joined them. They performed traditional temple dancing, music from Balinese puppet theatre, and some original pieces by a famous Balinese couple (Dr. NyomanWenten and Nanik Wenten) –both music and dance. The style of this music is loud and fiery. I could only take photos because recording was prohibited.

Delights 6

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Redwood tree absorbs the mist.

Jasmine fragrance fills th air.

Scarlet, hot pink, peach, orange and multicolored

rose blooms grace the garden wall.

Hummingbirds drink nectar from the feeder

in the lilac bush.

Morning joy.

Book 18 for 2026: “The Hakawati”, Rabih Alameddine

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In Lebanese, a hakawati is a traditional teller of legends, tales, all sorts of stories. Two basic sets of stories run parallel in this 500 plus page novel. One set is the family story of the narrator whose grandfather was a famous hakawati. This part of the novel portrays life in contemporary Lebanon and the life of the narrator who emigrated to the US to attend UCLA engineering school and stayed in the US. He tells about his family history and his growing up, the various invasions of Israel into Lebanon and how it affected his family and friends, and how his family deals with their blended ethnicities, e.g Druze, Maronite, Orthodox. The novel alternates between this family’s story and traditional Middle Eastern tales of military heroes, jinn, magic, the underworld, etc. That portion of the novel is a sort of more modern One Thousand and One Nights.

My favorite quote from the novel is this: “Uncle Jihad used to say that what happens is of little significance compared with the stories we tell ourselves about what happens. Events matter little, only stories of those events affect us.” I reread this several times and thought about how even in the same family, individuals remember an event totally differently. This novel is also a reminder that even though Lebanon is in a totally different part of the world, families everywhere are more similar than different–the likes and dislikes, the family feuds, the emotions–in this all families remain the same no matter where on Earth.