I recently reviewed After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split in Islam (Lesley Hazleton), for the Dallas Morning News. Had it been up to me, this is what the review would have looked like: OMG!! THIS BOOK IS SO GOOD!! IF THIS BOOK WERE A PERSON, I WOULD MARRY IT!! GO READ [...]
All posts for the month September, 2009
Excellence – in book form.
Posted by emilylhauser on September 30, 2009
http://emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/2009/09/30/excellence-in-book-form/
You can go home again.
Twenty-five years ago, I undertook to spend several months in the Middle East with a group of strangers. We were all students together at St. Olaf College, but while some of the 19 other travelers (+ two supervisors) already knew each other, I didn’t know a blessed one of them. For about five months, they [...]
Posted by emilylhauser on September 29, 2009
http://emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/2009/09/29/you-can-go-home-again/
An easy fast.
Another Yom Kippur here in the galut, the exile. Another fast spent surrounded by the sounds and smells of people who have no idea what I’m doing, or why, another year in which I don’t get to hear the blessed hush of a nation’s highways and byways silenced by a minimal respect for the religious [...]
Posted by emilylhauser on September 25, 2009
http://emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/2009/09/25/an-easy-fast/
Picky? You have no idea.
As I believe I may have mentioned before, the lot of a freelancer is a painful one! Work is frequently produced that has meaning for the writer, but not so much for the editors of the world. Just before I finally gave up on maintaining an active commentary-writing career (roughly a year ago), I wrote [...]
Posted by emilylhauser on September 24, 2009
http://emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/2009/09/24/picky-you-have-no-idea/
Update.
For those who are interested, you can now see what I look like, on the About page. Good times!
Posted by emilylhauser on September 24, 2009
http://emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/2009/09/24/update/
Good stuff: Temples of words.
I just saw this amazing, mind-blowing, delightfully gob-smacking picture over at boingboing: This is a church that has been reimagined into a bookstore. A bookstore! If I lived within walking distance of this glorious place, I fear my retirement fund would be gobbled right up. And then I’d move on to the kids’ college fund. [...]
Posted by emilylhauser on September 23, 2009
http://emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/2009/09/23/good-stuff-temples-of-words/
Reason #12,087 that I hate the occupation.
I love Israel. I don’t “love Israel” in that way that Diaspora Jews are taught to “love Israel” — that sort of dreamy, Zionist, ingathering-of-the-Jews, aren’t-the-Israelis-a-heroic-and-beautiful-people, we-must-be-ever-vigilant kind of religio-cultural devotion — rather, I love the actual Israel in which I actually lived for 14 years of my life. I particularly love Tel Aviv. I [...]
Posted by emilylhauser on September 22, 2009
http://emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/2009/09/22/reason-12087-that-i-hate-the-occupation/
Good stuff: The truth.
On Friday, I found myself cutting and pasting all of these good, interesting, funny quotes, stuff that made me think. I may someday make individual posts of all of them, but for today, I’m going to let you think your own thoughts: “People will come to a convention, stand there in a Spock costume, look [...]
Posted by emilylhauser on September 21, 2009
http://emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/2009/09/21/good-stuff-the-truth/
Birthday!
Would you just look at this? Look at what my sister and her fiance gave me for my birthday! This, in the wake of the “well, I guess I’ll just be grateful that I have a functioning car” post of a couple of weeks ago. Some presents are just right, you know what I mean? [...]
Posted by emilylhauser on September 21, 2009
http://emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/2009/09/21/birthday/
Shana tova.
This evening marks the beginning of Rosh HaShana, a holiday known as the “Jewish New Year” but which is really the Jewish celebration of the anniversary of Creation, and is, thus, the World’s New Year — a two day celebration of Creation and God’s malchut, sovereignty, over the Earth. It’s a time when we are [...]
Posted by emilylhauser on September 18, 2009
http://emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/2009/09/18/shana-tova/
