A shameless, but well deserved plug
My friend Jenny's first book has come out! It's called Inheriting the Holy Land: An American's Search for Hope in the Middle East. You should all buy it, read it, review it, and buy copies for your friends, family, and dustmen. You should also catch Jenny on her book tour (dates posted in the Events section here).
Inspired by Amalthea12, I have stolen two editorial reviews from Amazon:
From Publishers Weekly
Though only 24, Miller, the daughter of a U.S. State Department negotiator and a mother active in the leadership program Seeds for Peace, is something of a veteran of Middle Eastern matters. Her own involvement with Seeds for Peace, which primarily helps Arab and Israeli students learn the delicate arts of negotiation and conflict resolution, begins in 1996, and it is the intensity of her first experiences with the group-which took place in the hopeful period between the Oslo accords and the rise of the second intifada-that inform her fundamentally optimistic point of view. But the past half-decade has been hard for such optimists, and Miller's ambitious, personal exploration of the conflict (especially its ruinous effect on the youth of the region) is often conflicted and raw, angry and impatient. Her best diplomatic instincts don't preserve her from disgust at much of what she hears and sees from everyone from Arafat to Powell, from a settlement mayor to the denizens of a Ramallah pizza joint; she is even prepared to condemn her own father's "watery evasions." Miller's passionate advocacy of fairness and clarity can seem at times naïve, but her commitment to the process of peace comes through at every point.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
*Starred Review* This is a hopeful book about a conflict that often seems hopeless. Miller is a 24-year-old alumnus of Seeds, a youth program that brings students from the Middle East to the U.S. in an effort to build trust between them and to stress the value of compromise and negotiation. Miller places her hopes for peace upon the young Israelis and Palestinians whom she lives with and interviewed. There are fascinating and surprising vignettes here that provide interesting perspectives. Omri, a Jew of Yemenite ancestry, is torn between his desire that Palestinians would "disappear" and his basic sense of decency. There is an interesting but frustrating look at Israeli and Palestinian history textbooks and their seemingly irreconcilable views of the past. Perhaps most touching is the story of Yara, a 15-year-old Israeli Arab girl who attends a Jewish high school and seems "assimilated" but cannot feel fully Israeli in a self-proclaimed Jewish state. Miller also interviewed key political figures, including Arafat, Barak, Abbas, and Dahlan. What emerges is a sense that there are both ordinary people and powerful people who are groping for a livable solution to this intractable struggle. (Jay Freeman)
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Inspired by Amalthea12, I have stolen two editorial reviews from Amazon:
From Publishers Weekly
Though only 24, Miller, the daughter of a U.S. State Department negotiator and a mother active in the leadership program Seeds for Peace, is something of a veteran of Middle Eastern matters. Her own involvement with Seeds for Peace, which primarily helps Arab and Israeli students learn the delicate arts of negotiation and conflict resolution, begins in 1996, and it is the intensity of her first experiences with the group-which took place in the hopeful period between the Oslo accords and the rise of the second intifada-that inform her fundamentally optimistic point of view. But the past half-decade has been hard for such optimists, and Miller's ambitious, personal exploration of the conflict (especially its ruinous effect on the youth of the region) is often conflicted and raw, angry and impatient. Her best diplomatic instincts don't preserve her from disgust at much of what she hears and sees from everyone from Arafat to Powell, from a settlement mayor to the denizens of a Ramallah pizza joint; she is even prepared to condemn her own father's "watery evasions." Miller's passionate advocacy of fairness and clarity can seem at times naïve, but her commitment to the process of peace comes through at every point.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
*Starred Review* This is a hopeful book about a conflict that often seems hopeless. Miller is a 24-year-old alumnus of Seeds, a youth program that brings students from the Middle East to the U.S. in an effort to build trust between them and to stress the value of compromise and negotiation. Miller places her hopes for peace upon the young Israelis and Palestinians whom she lives with and interviewed. There are fascinating and surprising vignettes here that provide interesting perspectives. Omri, a Jew of Yemenite ancestry, is torn between his desire that Palestinians would "disappear" and his basic sense of decency. There is an interesting but frustrating look at Israeli and Palestinian history textbooks and their seemingly irreconcilable views of the past. Perhaps most touching is the story of Yara, a 15-year-old Israeli Arab girl who attends a Jewish high school and seems "assimilated" but cannot feel fully Israeli in a self-proclaimed Jewish state. Miller also interviewed key political figures, including Arafat, Barak, Abbas, and Dahlan. What emerges is a sense that there are both ordinary people and powerful people who are groping for a livable solution to this intractable struggle. (Jay Freeman)
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved