Mexico City, Mexico - [Pick: The One Percent Doctrine by Ron Suskind] It certainly isn't light summer reading. But I tend to agree with Ian McEwan, who, after what happened in New York and Washington, decided that pure fiction was no longer entirely appropriate. This world of ours begs to be understood rather that dramatized.
Suskind's honest - sometimes even brutal - account of American foreign policy after 9/11 is indispensable for an understanding of how the world has worked for the last few years.
In any case, if the reader can't bear too much reality, allow me to share the other book I've been returning to for a while now: the complete poems of Yehuda Amichai. Amichai was a tender and lyrical poet, full of surprising and original imagery. The Israel that emerges from his poetry is the best one: a scarred but hopeful place. That is not such a bad message for times like these.
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