One new initative that has sprung forth from the constantly evolving realm that is Jordan Planet is an online book club — the brain child of Jordanian blogger Ohoud. The members of the club are currently discussing Diana Abu Jaber’s novel novel Crescent. Although I haven’t read the book, I highly enjoyed reading the discussions taking place between club members.
Surprisingly, a majority of members slammed the novel saying it had a number of factual errors! It is very refreshing to see such bright Jordanian voices dissecting literature and giving their take on the work of a Jordanian-American author! Kudos to those behind the Book Club. I hope time will permit me to take part in an upcoming discussion.
I think I am the lone JP book club person who enjoyed it(not crazy about it, but enjoyed it).
I can’t even get on Ohoud’s blog to comment as her bandwidth is full!
I found Crescent to be quite a decent read, and I must have overlooked the factual errors – I wonder what they were?. Perhaps I enjoyed the book more because I had just moved to the US and reading anything related to the Middle East was good enough for me then! Abu Jaber’s prose is a little flowery, but I loved her descriptions of food. I thought it was better than the Language of Baklava.
Khalidah,
I was surprised by how badly this book was received! I recently finished Diana Abu Jaber’s the Language of Baklava and I highly enjoyed it.
I’m currently reading Memoirs of Geisha..I will let you know what I think of it when I ‘m finally done. So far the story is well written but a bit of a downer.
Natasha, I am really disappointed in the novel that was chosen to be the first on the list of books suggested for the book club, and I commented on that on Ohoud’s blog.
I wouldn’t recommend it 😀
On a side note; Memoirs of a Geisha is a magnificent work of Art; I have just posted about it here: http://anolita.jeeran.com/mind/archive/2006/2/25580.html
Enjoy it; I certainly did