Dracula Author: Bram Stoker

I had already seen dozens of movies, comics and games about Dracula but I had not ever readen the original book by Bram Stoker. Through an initiative of Dublin City Public libraries, with a project called Dublin: One City, One Book, I took attention to the Stoker's book, which was chosen for the 2009 edition of the project. This project every year takes a different book and put it in a lighted spot to be seem in evidence in all over the places in the city - in museums, bookstores, theaters, libraries (of course) and even on the streets.
My reference to this book was the 1992 Coppola's adaptation film that I heard it was the closest to the original, and for that I guess it is true, but just for the first part of the movie. I shall return to talk a little about the differences between one and another later.
The book starts with the kind of atmosphere that is shown in the movie when Jonathan Harker goes to the Castle of Count Dracula, in Transylvania. The mystery about the place, the weird aspect of the Count that for each page becomes a more evident evil person and all the suffering of Mr. Harker that slowly changes status from a guest to a prisoner, describe the first part of the book. The pages are written by the view of Mr. Harker and it is a rich account and incredible breathless.
The story is built by excerpts from Jonathan Harker's journal, Mina Harker's Journal – Jonathan's wife , Dr. Seward's Journal, Dr. Van Helsing's journal and some pieces of newspapers. In this configuration the author manage to put real emotions and gives a sense that can really be felt from the reader.
The plot is simple. The monster minded Count Dracula decides to move to London, England. He learned the social rules, the language and managed to afford some lands in the Britain capital and he needs some help to do the transition. Well planned to move on, the Count calls to Jonathan Harker, one of his London's solicitor, to come to his place in Transylvania where they could work on the last details.
Count Dracula treats Harker as a guest in a very good manner and they start to talk every night for almost all night which the Count says it is good to practice his communication skills in English. After each session with the Count, Jonathan writes on his journal how was the conversation. They talk about impersonal things like the Britain culture and so on and the Count always avoid to talk about himself. In each night the Count always says that he would like that Jonathan could stay longer. Nevertheless Jonathan starts to suspect that the Count is actually pretending be something else that he is not. As the days going on, Jonathan starts to see unusual and terrifying things inside the castle. After a while without being able to get out of the castle at anytime of the day or in the night Jonathan realizes that there is must be something very wrong in all the situation, including the Count's behavior. He finds very strange the fact that the Count just can be seen after dusk and that, although there is always noise in the castle, he cannot see anyone else living there.
During the day-time Jonathan takes the opportunity to be alone without the presence of the Count and tries to know about the castle and see all the rooms, corridors and maybe if there exists a exit from the built. In one of this tours he finds a little chapel with a coffin that for his surprise it has got the Count himself laid down like a dead body.
Jonathan makes up his mind that the Count Dracula is a sort of a monster, an aberration, and he tries to play the game that he was put in on just to try to scape from that alive. Indeed, Count Dracula realizes what is going on in Jonathan's mind and he plays even hard the role of a good host to make Jonathan fight with struggle to keep himself sane.
Crossing the excerpts of others journals, the book changes the subject and shows more two main characters: Mina Murray, that after will be Jonathan's wife; and Dr Seward, a sanatorium's doctor. Their lives are going to cross with the Jonathan's life when he comes back to his home and they will together fight against the Count Dracula that will be landed in London. To help them, a dutch professor called Abraham Van Helsing from Amsterdam and friends of one of the first victim (best friend of Mina, Lucy) of the evil Count Dracula in London, Quincey Morris and Arthur Holmwood will be added to the plot and all the crew will learn about their enemy and the best way to defeat him.
I would say that the Irish author Bram Stoker was brilliant in the way he put all the suspense in the book, but in my opinion the action at the very end of the book could be better. Actually I thing is that the end was with no glamor.
And to put glamor to this plot, I think Coppola's adaptation succeeded. The Coppola's version took all the suspense that Bram Stoker managed to create and then added to it an another end with love and sexuality that was not written in the book.
It is not possible to blame the author for the lack of the right action at the end of the book. The author managed to publish this book in 1897 and at this time he was inventing a new genre in the literature that later had influenced many other authors.
In addition of a very good experience the book brought to me, it influenced me in one thing as well – I have started to write a journal. The book is not just built from the character's journal but all the time it is said how important and good is to keep a journal by the characters in the book. I took them for example to be followed. And I actually believe that the habit of write about our day can be important in the future. Many journals brought to the history facts that would be ignored if they did not have been written (or found). I have got two big examples. The first one is the Christopher Columbus's journal; if it had not been found, we would believe that the America's discovery was done by someone else and we would never had known that his plan was to get in on India through his idea that the earth was round.
The second example is the Cabeza de Vaca's Journal. He was a Spanish explorer that survived a wreck in the America and managed to walk naked for almost ten years meeting and taking knowledge from the native American Indians and the jungle. Through his account, it is possible to take many information on the America's discovery and what the explorers found in the new world.
I am not to say that my accounts will be important for the course of history, but above from be a good write exercise, it can be used in the future by others to know how we managed to make things in our lives done and help them in anyway.
To finalize – the Bram Stoker's Dracula is a full entertainment and full filled all my expectations. It was a pleasure read it.

Atlantis and Crusade Gold Author: David Gibbins

These both books together were the first I read when I came to Ireland. I used to read a lot in my language but to read in English would be a new big challenge for me. To start I thought that it would be a good idea if I got books with the same subject that made me love read when I was a teenager. I believed that if I were really interested probably I would give my best to try understand the reading. Other point I thought was that for the reason I was familiarized with the subject I would understand the read intuitively and then learn how English works.
Well I cannot say rather I was wrong or not because it has being not a long time since I start it. But now I think that to learn a new language is not that simple and requires much more than I thought before. Actually I can say that to understand is one thing, to speak is other thing and then interact is other thing. I thought before that I would have to first to understand in order to speak and then to interact. Now I see that we need different practices to understand, to speak and to interact. If I had a good level of understand, it would not necessary means that I have a good level of speaking and so on. Therefore I now believe that to make a good way to learn a new language is necessary to read, to write, to listen and to practice speak a lot. (What I have not done and for this reason I have not taken a the improvement I expected.)
Anyways, backing to the books, they are great. PhD in Archeology Gibbins managed to write fiction with historical information, rich technical detail on archeology, sea expeditions and shipwrecks. The author is a underwater archaeologist and was professor in a UK university before leaving teaching to become a novelist and dedicate himself to carry out fieldwork. The book on Atlantis was his first novel book and Crusader Gold was his second. The author have published others titles since then.
In Atlantis, the marine archaeologist Jack Howard and his team are on board of the Seaquest hunting one of the most intriguing legend in history – The Lost Empire of Atlantis. Mixing lessons of history, mystery and adventure, the book is full of what the science knows about this island that was first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias. In order to make the reader understand all the mystery about Atlantis the author puts discussions between the members of the crew that carry on many pages with a lot of information and assumptions on it.
The crusader Gold is a direct sequence on Atlantis and brings back Jack Howard and his team in a search of the holiest of the treasures called menorah. The menorah is a sacred golden lampstand symbol of the Jewish faith that was taken from Jerusalem probably in 614, when the city was pillaged by the Persians.
Going through the fall of the Roman Empire, the rise of the Vikings, days of Nazi power and ancient bloody rituals in America, Jack Howard takes a gigantic adventure that could change the view of the whole history.
The way that the author manage to show the facts and to develop the action in these books is unique. I love how the crew members interact with each other and the many different places that the author describes. Places like Greenland, UK, Mediterranean and America. The author also puts in the end of each book the facts behind the fiction.
Good as thriller, as a adventure book and as a lesson book. It is a complete entertainment.

The Places in Between Author: Rory Stewart

If someone asked me what is my favorite book this year, I would be in trouble because I have really enjoyed most of my choices this year, but maybe I could say that The places in Between is, in some sort of way, the most remarkable. What I felt while reading this book was very special. It was a passageway for another world. I said and mean to say another world because I realized how the mid-east affairs were alien to me. I had never understood nor tried to understand this region that I only used to heard about it on news on terrorism, violence, war from one religion to another, and women's oppression. After this book, and because it, I started to search more about what is going on middle east and point my interest on Internet, magazines and documentaries. Moreover I read The Osama bin Laden I know, The bookseller of Kabul, the Occupational Hazards – The prince of Marshes (other fantastic book by Rory Stewart) and I am reading the From Beirut to Jerusalem. Because The Places in Between I was awaken to this part of the world I had missed until then and I have started to try figure out what is going on.
I had special feelings about how and from what the book was written. I admire Rory Stewart for his courage and he is for me what I would like to become one day, but I do not have the knowledge, the emotional strong and the unbreakable will as he has got.
The Book is a diary of one part of his twenty-one-month journey on foot throughout Asia. This was to be the last part of this journey. The author followed the footsteps of the first Mughal Emperor of India, called Babur the Great, and walked across Afghanistan from Herat (west) to Kabul (east) in the winter time with snow all over the places and a after-war atmosphere.
With a little Persian communication skills, Stewart arrived in Afghanistan in January 2002, very short after US invasion on Afghani soil on the war on Terrorism. He said he was probably the only tourist in the country at that time and it is not hard to believe. The author's intention was to walk alone for all the route but the immigration service and officials thought he had better take some companion for security reasons. Stewart and his companion started to go across the country in a very cold and hostile terrain, slept in small villages and feeding themselves with the rare food of humble hosts that shared their houses for his safe. The author dedicates his book to the people that helped him trough his journey and realizes that without these people his adventure would never be done (although he puts that a number of these people were 'greedy, idle, stupid, hypocritical, insensitive, mendacious, ignorant and cruel', but he tanked for they did not attempt to kidnap or kill him).
Rory Stewart writes with passion and sensibility, despite the fact that he needed for his journey be strong to get respect for the people he met on the way. He shows a very weak and devastated country suffered with almost twenty five years of war. Remote areas and isolated people that live their lives with struggle. This country looks like a forgotten world standing between modern societies.
For those who like to know more about this book, there is a video which Stewart talks about these days on Afghanistan that I put below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeJTBn73M6Y

Geldof in Africa Author: Bob Geldof

I had not ever heard about Bob Geldof before I came to Ireland. When I was in Library, I used to see his book about Africa and wonder what kind of book it would be. The cover was a picture with a weird long-haired person with stripped shirt, sunglasses and outdoor boots. It was not that attractive. Despite the fact I find the theme of Africa very interesting, I was afraid of that the book would be silly. It looked to me a complete waste of time – how I was wrong. One day I decided give it a chance and took the book to home. For my astonishing I was took by surprise and since I began to read it I could not stop until the end. This book in my opinion was written by inspiration. It is brilliant.
Bob Geldof is a Irish musician and activist and very recognized for his anti-poverty efforts. He initiated Band Aid in 1984, a record for the victims of famine in Africa, and since there he has made many efforts in name of charity. He has influenced a generation of artists, including Irish humanitarian Bono Voz, for fighting for a better tomorrow in poor countries.
The book 'Geldof in Africa' is the snapshot of his mind, as the author called in its foreword. It is his personal diary while he was visiting thirteen countries in the Luminous Continent (how Geldolf calls Africa) and it is illustrated by his own photographs. The author describes situations, gives sense of place, talks about culture, religions and politics. Many chapters begin with lose weird news taken by locals newspapers and he finds where put his ideas and poetry.
There are some points he talks I had not seen before as he puts them. Things like the the realistic vision of the cruelty of AIDS, the cyclical poverty, the difference between cultures inside Africa and the synchronism that happen with believes. He puts 'Like everywhere else in the world . Religion in Africa is a great new political force again. Islam, paid for by fundamentalists Saudis, in the north; evangelical Christianity, with links to the American Pentecostalists, in the centre and the south; and an unprecedented rise in the old traditional religions. People [in Africa] say, 'We're 60 per cent Muslin, 40 per cent Christian and 100 per cent Voodoo'. And that's true of Africa – the assimilation of new ideas and bolting them on to the old'.
He tells us 'the complex, unexpected story of slavery' showing that before the Portuguese, the Arabs and Chinese had been visiting the east coast of Africa for hundreds of years looking for Gold, frankincense, ivory and slaves. He shows his vision and understanding in why slavery became something integrated to the continent.
Some unexpected aspects are shown as well like his description of the Africa's smell. He notes that no one before had written about how Africa smells. For him, it smells so weirdly that this theme deserves a chapter in the book with a touch of poetry. He describes the landscape and talks about how it is hot by the sun; and how the sand is everywhere.
The author finish the book writing about his vision and what he thinks it is good for Africa. He shows what has already being done and what should be done more strongly. The last part is a very exciting part showing the preparations of an musical event to collect funds to charity. The whole book shows how Geldof is involved and really honest about his activism. The book give us the notion that it is possible to change and help Africa and more than this, it shows how think towards Africa is, actually, needed.
He says that go to Africa fells like... going home, and I really felt, at the end of the book, like getting there one day.

The Holographic Universe Author: Michael Talbot

I did not read this book after I came on travel, but I have talked about it constantly since I read it five years ago. The funny thing is that without my intention the ideas of this book always come across in my conversations, in special situations when I am talking about our existence as human (maybe because the theories showed in this book are actually about the universe as a whole and everything in it, so in theory I can fit the same ideas to explain everything) and somehow they make me happy and the others that I am talking to hopeful.
I did not get as much I wanted to from the book, I mean as much as I think that it would be enough to make me comfortable to write about it. Although the book is written in a very easy way to understand (it is not necessary an advanced knowledge in physics or any kind of science), I have not got the the English or the writing skills nor even a science vision to try make a opinion about.
But the point is that this book was the first one I read or noticed that started with the idea that the interior experience can manifest in outside world (the book was published in 1991). This idea became popular through books like 'The Secret' and the 'The Power of now' and several others and documentaries like 'What the bleep do I know' produced by William Arntz (http://www.whatthebleep.com).
The holographic universe exposes a theoretical model of reality that suggests the physical universe is akin to a giant hologram. The book explains first what is a hologram and gets on a trip with the studies of the quantum physicist David Bohn (US born British) and the neurophysiologist Karl Pibran (Austrian) to explain the holographic theory. The book can be separated into two parts where the first part is the explanation of the theory and the second is the applicability of it. The author believes that this vision can provide basis for a mystical experience.
Maybe because the author's background, much what we can see in the book has to do with paranormal and anomalous phenomena, but alike others Michael Talbot brings us a scientific theory and supports it with a very good material. These two links below (both with the same contents) explain the theory in a short-read article.
http://www.crystalinks.com/holographic.html
http://twm.co.nz/hologram.html
In a Holographic Universe we are not what we think we are, we are not separated nor even we have got a individuality nor ego, we are manifestations of the holographic universe viewing itself from inside.

The Osama Bin Laden I know Auhtor Peter L. Bergen

The American journalist Peter L. Bergen brings to us a portrait built from his own interviews with about fifty people that have known Osama bin Laden personally at various stages of his life. The author is a terrorism analyst from CNN, and has written several books on terrorism.
Bergen conducted the first television interview with Osama bin Laden in 1997, after Bin Laden had declared a jihad (holy war) against the United States of America. The questions were submitted in advance and it was not allowed to ask follow up questions. This interview lasted over an hour and all the details of the interview can be seen in this book.
The book is written in a chronological way and its contents are almost didactic. The author fills up the book with many support materials as a list of names and description of each person that was interviewed by him, map of the region, time line of Osama bin Laden, documents from al Queda and from bin Laden as appendix.
The author means to describe the life of Osama bin Laden in order to understand how he became the commander of the number-one terrorist organization in the world. One deep religious man with an endless resources found himself a duty to help his people against the Soviet Union's invasion on Afghanistan in nineteen-eighties. In this war, all the muslins were called to fight against Soviet Union on Afghani soil or by giving donations to the jihad movement. It was, for Osama bin Laden, a holy war, between the good and evil, and about the future of the Muslin nations. This war lasted for almost ten years and ended with the withdraw of the USSR army from Afghanistan. The jihad movement was known in the all Muslin countries and after the success defending Afghanistan they started be seen with respect and some people might see then as leaders in Muslin matters as well, including the Palestine problem.
The book shows through interviews all the transformations of actions, ideals and politics from the authorities in the Muslin World, how the jihad became a terrorist group fighting for the Muslin cause and taking actions in the Palestine and Israel matters. The author explains how Osama had escaped from Tora-Bora, when the American troops came after him, and how he managed to draw thousands of followers. Bergen put all together interviews and documents about the involved people in the terrorist attacks of al Quaeda through the years and what they think, how they plot and what its vision is.

The Bookseller of Kabul - Author: Asne Seierstad

The Bookseller of Kabul
Author: Asne Seierstad

The award-winning journalist Asne Seierstad was in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban in November of 2001. One of the first people she met in Afghani soil was a bookseller called Sultan Khan who for years had defied the authorities to supply books in the city of kabul. After some meetings, she decided to ask him for permission to write about his life and his family in order to describe its habits, culture, religion and how all the changes that the Country had been suffered are felling from their perspective.
This experience came out in a amazing book, half biography of Sultan's family and half History book of Afghanistan. Exploring the every day frustration of the women in a Muslim society and stories from the time of the Taliban regime, the author managed to portrait this country that came in evidence for our sight in a terrible way.
One of the interesting part of the book is the description of the sixteen decrees that were broad cast on Radio when the Taliban rolled in. Key excerpts follow.
1 - Prohibition against female exposure
2 - Prohibition against music
3 -Prohibition against shaving
4 - Mandatory prayer
5 - Prohibition against the rearing of pingeons and bird-fighting
6 - Eradication of narcotics and the users thereof
7 - Prohibition against kite-flying
8 - Prohibition against reproduction of pictures
9 - Prohibition against gambling
10 -Prohibition against British and American hairstyles
11 - Prohibition against interest on loans, exchange charges and charges on transactions
12 - Prohibition against the washing of clothes by river embankments
13 – Prohibition against music and dancing at weddings.
14 - Prohibition against playing drums
15 - Prohibition against tailors sewing women's clothes or taking measurements of women
16 - Prohibition against witchcraft.
For us, occidental people, it is not that easy to think that the Taliban was not in fact the result of the Muslin culture, or the result of the Afghani citizens, but reading this book it could be possible think that the Taliban was, like any other form of a dictatorial govern, a expression of a minority. In this case a poor, illiterate, sexists and religious extremists. For that vision I shall return later when I will talk about others books written about the Afghanistan. I believe that in order to understand what is Afghanistan and its culture and citizens it is necessary to look backward in the history of the muslin culture and try to understand the path that it has drawn.
Just to illustrate the kind of people that had worked for Taliban, in the book there is a part that describes one day when some Taliban's soldiers came to the Sultan's book store. They were interested only in [excerpts from the book] 'pictures. Heretical texts, even those on the shelves right in front of their eyes, were overlooked. The soldiers were illiterate and could not distinguish orthodox Taliban doctrine from heresy. But they could distinguish pictures from letters and animate creatures from inanimate things'. After a while they decided to burn its books and arrest Sultan. Sultan had got to go to The Department for the Promotion of Virtue And Extermination of Sin, better known as the Ministry of Morality, and in answer for the crimes he was charged he said [excerpts from the book] 'You can burn my books, you can embitter my life, you can even kill me, but you cannot wipe out Afghanistan's history'. Sultan, as described by Asne Seierstad, thinks that the Taliban could be an attempt against the Afghani people.
The muslin culture is very highlighted in the book, of course. The author, as a women, found very hard some aspects of this culture, like wear the burka and how the women's life is controlled by the men of their family and under the rules of a sexist religion. In the second half of the book it is the main subject, when the author tell us the story about the Sultan family's women. She explains that with Taliban's government, the women were even more controlled and submissive than ever but despite the fall of this regime it is still a struggle for the women be integrated in the society.
I enjoyed very much the Bookseller of Kabul. This book had helped me to figure out what is the felling of the people involved with middle-east affairs. It works like a window to make us observe a little of this very interesting region that became, more than ever, a subject very important of our society. I think that this kind of book is very interesting because it fills the gap between the historic and politic books and the every-day news. It helps to understand what it is all about.