4/7/2007

At the Ferry Building















Reading A Long Way Gone, Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, by Ishmael Beah. It's about a boy who was forced to be a soldier in Sierra Leone in the late 90's and was rescued by Unicef, rehabilitated and reconnected with his family. Later he moved to New York City and became a spokesperson for children who, like himself, were forced to be soldiers. He learned about the book on NPR and a couple of cable shows.

Another book he learned about from NPR, which he read just before this one, was Heyday, by Kurt Andersen. It tells the story about the California gold rush and is set in Paris, New York, and San Francisco. He said it was good, but not as good as A Long Way Gone.

His favorite novel--Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry. It takes place in Texas, where he grew up. What he likes about it is the characters and their loyalty to each other. They start their lives in law enforcement and end up running a ranch. He's a police officer himself, in Los Angeles, and is just up in San Francisco for a visit.

Other books he's read recently--Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, by Thomas Rick and Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone, by Rajiv Chandrasekaran. He's a member of the Marine Corps Reserve and has been to Iraq twice, in 2003 and 2005.