Readings in November

Without any travels in the month of November, pakdokter had ample time to catch up on reading. As Tariq Ali had rejuvenated pakdokter's interest in his writing again after pakdokter's recent meeting with him in Bali in October at the Ubud Writers Festival - pakdokter read up all 5 of his books in the Islam Quintet series. They are all works of fiction which revolved around the times of the great Islamic Empire in al-Andalus, Cairo, Turkey,Sicily (Palermo), Beirut and Baitul-Muqaddis and the latest on China ( Yunnan) .....In all the books - the main point that pakdokter picked up was that the fall of the great Islamic Empire and civilisation was broght about by 'disunity'. Of special note was also the fact that how 'tolerant' the Moslem rulers were to the population of different religious backgrounds which were not reciprocated by the Conquistadores or the Crusaders after gthey defeated the ruling Moslems.....

Pakdokter also managed to read the above boo k which won the Booker Prize 2011. It was a short and sweet book which made it an easy reading.

Pakdokter also managed to quickly read Nik Ahmad Azmi's collection of essays he wrote for the Edge newspaper - compiled into a book called 'Coming of Age'. This young and promising politician hopefully would encourage more young, educated and hopefully sincere people to get involved in local politics and bring about change for a better Malaysia.