A few weeks some of us talked about having a book discussion on Ruby Payne's Hidden Rules of Class at Work.  If anyone else is interested, meet us back here in a month or so (let me know if you need more time), and we'll discuss it.

I am going to go ahead and open a thread for our discussion of Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns. It's a powerful book and one I do not want to forget.

The extent of the suffering and resilience of the book's two protagonists, Mariam and Laila, are fresh in my mind and I must commend Hosseini for writing a second novel with characters so real and likable and whose lives as page-turning as his first novel The Kite Runner.

Because The Kite Runner is one of my all-time favorite books and its characters almost all men, I was afraid Hosseini would overreach in writing about women. I expected disappointment. But I found my heart in my throat, nervous for these women, loving these women and unable to put this book down until I knew what happened to them. I was crestfallen when that man at the bus station turned them in, hoping they would escape and live happily ever after in Pakistan. But Hosseini is right that these women's fateful punishment by their abusive husband Rasheed was more realistic in Afghanistan today. (See the non-fiction book Kabul Beauty School.)

That said, Hosseini offered a glimpse of hope in the way of the orphanage, which is not unrealistic. In Kabul Beauty School, the women take immeasurable risks to learn a trade and earn some money. Afghan women like Laila do exist.

Which leads me to some discussion questions:

Do you think the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan will free women? (This thought crossed my mind as I felt that the women living under Russian communist control were much more free than under the Afghan-backed Taliban!)

I found this question on About.com and wondered the same thing:

When the Taliban first enter the city, Laila does not believe women will tolerate being forced out of jobs and treated with such indignity. Why do the educated women of Kabul endure such treatment? Why are the Taliban accepted?

Finally, do you think Mariam did the right thing in calling no witnesses or an attorney to defend her at her trial? This woman had much more balls than anyone, including her mother, gave her credit for IMHO. I thought it was brave and "gladiatoresque" of her.

What other scenes or passages stood out to you? Did you like this book? Why or why not?

Yes, let's do this! I just saw a preview for the Kite Runner and I remembered how much I enjoyed that book. I teared up at the preview. I am looking forward to A Thousand Splendid Suns, which has been collecting dust on my night table. Thank you for moderating, Sue! -Elisa

I mentioned on the Weekend post that I'm reading this book (by the author of The Kite Runner) and would be willing to moderate a discussion.  

Attention book club lovers: I just realized that we don’t have anything lined up for the fall! Would someone like to moderate the next book club discussion? There were some interesting titles floating around this diary by Sue in Queens.

Cary Tennis is a fine example of how not all people without kids are naïve about childrearing. He recently doled out sensible advice to an uncle who was witnessing his brother walk out on his girlfriend and their five-month-old son. The uncle understandably thought his brother was an asshole, but was wondering if the father shouldn’t stick around for the sake of the child.

Tennis told him to go ahead and call his brother an “asshole.” But to conduct himself as if his five-month-old nephew could understand him.

Kids can grow up well under all kinds of circumstances. It's about how you treat the kid and who the kid is. The last thing you want to do is tell this kid his dad's an asshole. So let's just pretend that everything we're saying the kid is hearing. Now who is his daddy and why did he leave? He left because he had to. We don't know why. He had to go do something really important, and he loves us and cares about us but he couldn't live with us because he had to do something. And we love him and he's a good man and he loves us and that's just the way it is, because we don't understand everything even though we're adults and maybe it seems like we do. We don't. We don't really understand even how an electronic ignition works, or why sometimes you get "404" errors. We don't know why some toys are lame and others are your favorite. We don't know why some kids are bad and some kids are good. We don't know much, except we love you and things are going to be OK.

Something like that. You get what I'm saying? I'm saying get real and painfully honest but don't fill the kid's head full of hateful garbage.

And beware of this, too: Intense disapprobation can be an intoxicant. You can get high calling people assholes, that is. You can get high and feel powerful talking trash. That's one reason we do it. It makes us feel better. But that doesn't make it useful or productive. Except for getting stuff off your chest and moving on. So yeah, maybe your brother is an asshole. Now help me move this crib.

Like I said, the important thing is, How can the people around this child help the child, and help the child's mother?

Just food for thought. I know I am quick to call such men assholes -- and they are -- but not focused on what others can do to help their children.

This weekend, we will hang out with our Berkeley friends. Amy and I saw each other yesterday for the first time in at least a week. (Hey, that’s a long time for us!) She works full-time outside the home and I have a new baby. We were lamenting how much we missed each other. We used to see each other every single day when the boys were younger. Finally, we will have time to catch up!

What are you up to this weekend? Have a nice long weekend all!

Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert was perfect reading for my recent foreign travels. In the book, which is a memoir, Gilbert embarks on a one-year trip abroad after a divorce and a bout of depression.

While I am not depressed nor divorced -- and I am a mom, which Gilbert intentionally chooses to forgo -- I love to travel and still do, even with a baby in tow.  (Yes, I am paying for this right now with sleep deprivation as Eli is not on the same schedule as me. Ouch!)

Reading this book, made me want to visit especially Italy. When I do go -- a long ways away -- I will take Gilbert’s book with me. Reading her descriptions, made me want to go Naples to taste the pizza she wanted to make love to. I was fascinated by her stories on Roman and Sicilian history.

But most importantly, I could relate to the anguish of the human condition, always searching for anwers to that almighty question, “What is my purpose in life?” Gilbert sheds light on the universality of this experience in her travels to Italy, India and Indonesia, and provides brilliant insight.  

There are so many nuggets in this book I love, but I will limit this discussion to what most struck me and more broad topics like one of our favorites here: religion. Feel free to discuss even if you have not read the book.

In Italy, Gilbert realized that one source of our suffering here in the United States is that we are a “busy” culture. We do not indulge in pleasures like the Italians who sit down for long, leasurely meals, dress up and head for a night out of town. We actually feel guilty for pursuing such pleasures, and others, like learning a foreign language when there is no practical application for it.

I, too, was guilty into falling into this mindset, automatically dismissing the book for the privileged. But as Gilbert pointed out, you don’t need to be rich to take a break for a meal. Even the day laborers in Italy go home for lunch.  (Although in the States, I would say that day laborers can’t go home because they must go to their second jobs. Sorry, it is hard for me to thwart off this practical, American side of me!)

For me, though, a major obstacle in my pursuit of pleasure was my ingrained sense of Puritan guilt. Do I really deserve this pleasure? This is very American, too -- the insecurity about whether we have earned our happiness. Planet Advertising in America orbits completely around the need to convince the uncertain consumer that yes, you have actually warranted a special treat. This Bud’s for you! You Deserve a Break Today! Because You’re Worth It! You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby! And the insecure consumer thinks, Yeah! Thanks! I am gonna go buy a six-pack, damn it! Maybe even two six-packs! And then comes the reactionary binge. Followed by the remorse. Such advertising campaigns would probably not be as effective in the Italian culture, where people already know that they are entitled to enjoyment in this life. The reply in Italy to “You Deserve a Break Today” would probably be, Yeah, no duh. That’s why I’m planning on taking a break at noon, to go over to your house and sleep with your wife.

I really enjoyed this passage from Eat Pray Love, but was not sure where to fit it in our discussion. It is so insightful to the human condition and I am a hopeless Piscean romantic so I want to share it with you all.

In this section of the book, author Elizabeth Gilbert is at the Ashram trying to meditate. She finds this nearly impossible because of all the thoughts crammed in her mind. And she is embarrassed because, once again, on her trip -- the one in which she is supposed to forget her worries in America -- she begins obsessing over her ex-boyfriend (again).

What am I, in eighth grade?

And then I remember a story my friend Deborah the psychologist told me once. Back in the 1980s, she was asked by the city of Philadelphia if she could volunteer to offer psychological counseling to a group of Cambodian refugees—boat people—who had recently arrived in the city. Deborah is an exceptional psychologist, but she was terribly daunted by this task. These Cambodians suffered the worst of what humans can inflict on each other—genocide, rape, torture, starvation, the murder of their relatives before their eyes, then long years in refugee camps and dangerous boat trips to the West where people died and corpses were fed to sharks—what could Deborah offer these people in terms of help? How could she possibly relate to their suffering?

“But don’t you know,” Deborah reported to me, “what all these people wanted to talk about, once they could see a counselor?”

It was all: I met this guy when I was living in the refugee camp, and we fell in love. I thought he really loved me, but then we were separted on different boats, and he took up with my cousin. Now he’s married to her, but he says he really loves me, and he keeps calling me, and I know I should tell him to go away, but I still love him and I can’t stop thinking about him. And I don’t know what to do…

This is what we are like. Collectively, as a species, this is our emotional landscape. I met an old lady once, almost one hundred years old, and she told me, “There are only two questions that human beings have ever fought over, all through history. How much do you love me? And Who’s in charge? Everything else is somehow manageable.

For lack of better wording due to my sleep deprivation, I thought this book was smart.

I am not sure if we are reading anything right now, but can I make a suggestion? My book club is about to read Eat, Pray, Love, a memoir by journalist and novelist Elizabeth Gilbert, and it sounds intriguing:

In her early thirties, Elizabeth Gilbert had everything a modern American woman was supposed to want -- husband, country home, successful career -- but instead of feeling happy and fulfilled, she felt consumed by panic and confusion. This wise and rapturous book is the story of how she left behind all these outward marks of success, and of what she found in their place. Following a divorce and a crushing depression, Gilbert set out to examine three different aspects of her nature, set against the backdrop of three different cultures: pleasure in Italy, devotion in India, and on the Indonesian island of Bali, a balance between worldly enjoyment and divine transcendence.

It’s gotten rave reviews from every major critic, including this gem by Anne Lamott: “A wonderful book, brilliant and personal, rich in spiritual insight.”

So what do you think? Would you like to read it with me for next month? I will be leaving on vacation at the end of next week, returning July 19. I can moderate then.

Other books on my night table that I would not mind reading: Backlash by Susan Faludi, Khaled Hosseini’s new book A Thousand Splendid Suns, The Glass Castle -- a highly recommended memoir by Jeannette Walls -- and Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life.

What do you think, MotherTalkers? Is it time to resurrect book club??

Just for a quick review, we pick a book that at least a core group of people are interested in reading, we pick a date for discussion and we pick a moderator to guide the discussion.  On discussion day, the moderator puts up a diary with some discussion points, a brief synopsis, interesting quotes, etc.

The discussion is not meant to be exclusive; all are welcome to participate whether or not they had a chance to read.  Those who did read along can blog their own commentary on the comment thread.  And of course, we can all bounce our ideas and thoughts off each other.

Ok, so here are our next two picks so we can all get reading!

For May: Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg.  

This will take place sometime during the week of May 20th and our moderator is 1plain1peanut.

Do you hunger for skills to improve the quality of your relationships, to deepen your sense of personal empowerment or to simply communicate more effectively? Unfortunately, for centuries our culture has taught us to think and speak in ways that can actually perpetuate conflict, internal pain and even violence. Nonviolent Communication partners practical skills with a powerful consciousness and vocabulary to help you get what you want peacefully.

In this internationally acclaimed text, Marshall Rosenberg offers insightful stories, anecdotes, practical exercises and role-plays that will dramatically change your approach to communication for the better. Discover how the language you use can strengthen your relationships, build trust, prevent conflicts and heal pain. Revolutionary, yet simple, NVC offers you the most effective tools to reduce violence and create peace in your life—one interaction at a time.

See below for June's pick, Parenting Beyond Belief:

In the early 90s, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi coined the term "flow" to describe peak experiences where time feels suspended, with a sense of freedom and complete absorption. Flow experiences are high skill – but not so high as to be continually frustrating – and high concentration activities to meet a specific goal. Flow experiences include feedback – from other people or from immediate results – that supports a feeling of satisfaction that comes from using favorite skills.

Finding Flow, his second popular book on the subject, examines the connections between flow and daily, mundane activities – mostly work and leisure.  This work focused more on practical ideas, skills, and frames of mind that support flow experiences. While this book is not your typical self-help book, I found that on the whole, it offered thought provoking ideas about the choices we make every day about our jobs, our leisure time, and our relationships – and how these choices result in immediate impact on our sense of well-being or on feelings of "psychic entropy."