Library Loot

Hold onto your hats people! I actually went to the library and checked a book out. I know, if the obnoxious amount of snow pounding the Mid-Atlantic and Southern states hadn't already convinced you that the apocalypse was starting, me checking a book out of the library is likely to do so. I never use my local library. I mean never. But W. needed some references for a project on which he's working so we dutifully headed off. As a side-note, my sweet digital native child wondered aloud why he had to use books in addition to the internet for his research when everything he ever wanted to know about Mozambique, Madagascar, and leprosy could be found, in appalling technacolor (and if you think leprosy is bad in the black and white I vaguely remember from my own history books back at the dawn of time, you should see it in full color ::gag::) right here on the WWW. But books he needed so to the library we went. And even I couldn't resist one of the books on the display shelves. Although I'm already stressed to know I have to return it.

Just look at it, isn't it pretty? And enticing? And really, I'd rather own it than have to return it but since the library wants it back and since the last book I checked out from them I did end up having to buy after it sank on the boat this summer, I probably shouldn't push my luck, should be good, read it and return it to them intact and unswollen from water damage.

In any case, amazon describes The Consequences of Love by Sulaiman Addonia thusly:

Addonia's bold debut is more compelling as an indictment of the repressiveness of Saudi Arabia's Wahhabism than as a love story. In 1979, Naser's mother arranges for him and his brother, Ibrahim, to be smuggled from a Sudanese refugee camp into Jeddah and the care of a fundamentalist uncle. Naser learns to despise and fear the hate-mongering local imam, merciless religious police and powerful men who lust after boys with impunity. He never stops feeling homesick for his mother and her friends or frustrated by the Saudi's strict segregation of the sexes, and when a young woman drops a love letter at his feet, he's quickly smitten. The girl he calls Fiore (flower) is bold, passing him notes and wearing pink shoes to be recognizable in her abaya. Addonia's prose, unfortunately, loses credibility when he describes their passion. Both lovers risk public flogging or even execution, but neither doubts their relationship's correctness. The consequences they fear are of daring to love in a society dominated by hatred of foreigners, nonbelievers, women and often of love itself. Addonia's troubling revelations make for thought-provoking reading.

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Eva and Marg that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!