good g*d. review to follow.

Hard realities to read from the comfort of my own freedom. Several authors give voice to experiences, interviews and thoughts after visits to West Bank. There is a very fair and balanced mix in my opinion.

I can't move my wrist without waking up my cat so yeah, I'm totally just going to type out this review now. This is a perfect excuse for not working on my Logic homework. In any case, Kingdom of Olives and Ash is interesting because you have various authors from different backgrounds, each one writing short parts. In that sense, this book manages to show more diversity of thought than other books I've read about the conflict. However, I think this book would have been better if there would have

This is one of those books that I am going to be returning to in my head for days for a long, long time...I am normally not a big fan of essay collections. There's always one or two that you like and the rest drag along... but this time I enjoyed every single one! They are very different, different views, experiences, stories... but every essay had something that I could relate to, or something that send me off thinking and question my own views and perceptions... This is a very thought provokin...

I particularly liked Hari Kunzru's essay in this anthology.

These collected essays about the writers’ separate experiences in the occupied territories of Israel/Palestine have a kind of cumulative bludgeoning effect. The reader passes through stages of rage and resistance to the kind of stupefaction one encounters in a bombing war. Why on earth would anyone do such things? They’ve been led to it slowly, gradually, until the ‘enemy’ is ‘other’ and normal human rights rules do not apply.In a very short introduction, Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman admit

via my blog https://bookstalkerblog.wordpress.com/“When laws are irrational, and paranoia is rampant, and ancient hatreds undergird both, life becomes a series of frustrations and humiliations, and humiliated people are either broken spiritless or, with nothing to lose, are driven to acts of violent desperation. The young people tasked with enforcing these dehumanizing laws and regulations become, too, less human- they become callous, irrational, finding perverse pleasure in the willful exercise...

After reading "Letters to Palestine: Writers Respond to War and Occupation" edited by Vijay Prashad (He is so underrated!), I was eagerly looking forward to read "Kingdom of Olives and Ash" by Michael Chabon and Aylet Waldman. This book is not for everyone. It weighs you down mentally through one tragic stories after another. It exposes the horrors and shocks that were unknown, even to those who have dedicated good chunk of their lives in ending the apartheid. Some of the stories, specially the

"The Occupation is about time." Something similar - but not heinous - could be said of quality writing that occupies time and mind. I would have liked more time to really pore over these finely written, searing essays. My own introduction to the strife between Israel and the Palestinian "problem" came by way of Leon Uris novels. That is why it is imperative that respected writers from within the Jewish community, such as Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, and those of disparate communities, such...

I had not heard of Kingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation before spotting it in my local Fopp store.   I felt as though this collection of essays, which all revolve around the Israeli military's occupation of Palestine, was worthy of an extended review.  Whilst I knew quite a bit about the situation and its history before picking the book up, I am always eager to learn, and hoped that it would fill in the gaps which I was certain I had. Edited by husband and wife team Michael...

Kingdom of Olives and Ash is a grab bag in terms of quality. The collection is bookended beautifully - the first and last essays are among some of the finest writing produced. The middle wanes between good and mediocre. Chabon and Waldman could have perhaps done a more thorough job in editing, being less afraid to exclude certain essays from their collection. This would have helped on multiple fronts, as the collection was far too long. I do think the collection is important though, and should

This eye-opening collection helped me understand the Occupation in a way that I hadn't before. It focuses less on the broad political issues and more on the personal stories about what life is like on a daily basis in the occupied territories. While there are some uplifting and hopeful characters, the overarching theme is systematic dehumanization of a people with little relief in sight. There are few heroes in these stories. Israel is a ruthless oppressor, and Hamas does not treat their own peo...

I was happy when my partner bought this home for me week before last off the “new books” table at the U. of New Hampshire, as he knew I’d be since I’m off next month for two weeks in Israel and Palestine with an group organized by the YMCA of Palestine and the YWCA of East Jeruselum. (Information is here: http://www.jai-pal.org/en/campaigns/o...). After over 30 years of studying the situation, I cannot wait to see it with my own eyes, although I know my lenses are thick with influence including

This book calls us to stand up and bear witness. These authors offer us views into the Israeli Occupation that most Americans don't wish to acknowledge. Who would want to own this occupation? Surely no enlightened democracy in any era since 1948. Our question now should be why we are financially supporting it- the Occupation. This isn't about Zionism, it's about human decency. I received my copy from the publisher through edelweiss.

The single most important factor of this work is that it is a compilation of different voices. So many writers from so many backgrounds, witnessing their own truth. Palestinians are not a monolith, and we all experience the brutality of the Israeli occupation on our own terms. Yet the shared and collective suffering of a people is punctuated by an indelible spirit to steadfastly resist. Chabon and his comrades catch those moments.

This book is heartbreaking. And necessary. The sense of hopelessness is overwhelming. Take the entire area, from Jordan to the sea, from Lebanon and Syria down to Egypt, and toss it all into a garbage can, because surely both sides are in a death grip as they plummet to hell. And I'm pro-Zionist! But if this is the product of entrenched opposing sides, then both sides lose. Yes, both sides lose. You can walk the streets of Hell with this book. I highly recommend this book because it offers a sli...

‘In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.’Martin Luther King This was a hard book to read, to finish, not because of the writing but because of the subject matter. Sometimes I just wanted to turn my face away and just forget about it. But if I can't make myself continue reading it then imagine living in this kind of situation for years and years on end. The occupation has now had it's 50th anniversary this year 2017, and hurray to that :(I thin

This book was a powerful and difficult read. Before going into it, I was embarrassingly uninformed about Israeli occupation in Palestine, but I knew I wanted to read up on the subject before going to Israel for the first time last month. Reading a few of the essays before my trip definitely helped me to have a more informed experience. This collection presents a nuanced, personalized, and multi-faceted view of Palestinian life under Israeli occupation. Each of the twenty-six authors comes at the...

Predictably uneven collection of essays. I went to the Jerusalem book launch for this a few weeks ago and found myself in the audience at the Q&A yelling at Michael Chabon, one of my favourite authors and his wife. Not my finest hour. Now that I have read all the essays in this collection, I'm still a bit conflicted about the potential impact of this project. Saying that the Occupation is bad seems as redundant as saying that Trump's Presidency is bad. No one intelligent is going to argue with y...

I've been looking for a new book to explain the Palestine/Israel "situation" to others and I think this is it! "Kingdom..." is a series of essays by respectable writers from across the globe (US, Ireland, France, South America... - as well as local Palestinian and Israeli writers) who were "recruited" by the editors to spend a week in Palestine/Israel, to take a "tour" with members of Breaking the Silence (a group of former Israeli Defense Forces - IDF - soldiers who "broke the silence" of their...