Guys:

Can we share about books we have recently read and describe it a bit. We could share the best part of the books with each other.

Thank you for making my stay in sajha wonderful tonight. Thats something more than like a volunteer. :)

Ashu,

Of course. Looking forward to reading your review.

la some more..another lazy hot saturday afternoon in the northern capital.

Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda: This is the second most depressing book I have read so far. The author, Maj. Dalaire from Canada,who was the UN Commander for the Rwandan Operation admits that he suffered from bouts of depression after returning home from Rwanda. This book explains what really happened in Rwanda and what led to the genocide. He talks about the internal politics of Rwanda, the rivalry between RPF headed by Paul Kagame and the brutal RGF forces. This book might be of interest to those who are hopeful that the UN will get itself involved in Nepali crisis if the situation worsens. If you are interested in learning how the UN Peace Keeping missions worldwide work, how they choose (or not choose) the Peace Keeping forces, this is the book. This book not only strips France and Belgium of whatever credibility they have in international affairs when it comes to "morality", but also exposes the reality of the "Bangladeshi" peace keeping troops. Amazingly well written book.

Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare: This book should be of interest to those who want to understand armed insurgencies all over the world. Philip Short, a journalist and an acclaimed biographer of Mao, explains how Saloth Sar became Pol Pot. The book also explains the Khmer Rouge idelogy/policy derived from a crackpot doctorate thesis of Khieu Samphan, who believed that the cities/city dwellers were the cause of poverty and underdevelopment in Cambodia. This book details the crimes committed by a bunch of revolutionaries in their attempt to change the society, and the extreme measures they chose to do so. For example, Cambodia didn't have any currency because currency, in their (revolutionaries) view was the remnant of Capitalism.

Diplomacy: This book was written by two people, Prof. Henry Kissinger and Diplomat Henry Kissinger. The first part of the book written by Prof. Kissinger is amazingly great and informative. Prof. Kissinger explains the concepts of Balance of Power, Realpolitik, Bismark, Raison d'tat and others. However when Diplomat Kissinger writes on America's involvement in world affairs in the wake of the first world war, the book starts to read more and more straight out of Washington's altered archives. Whatever the book's and its author's shortcomings, this book is a must read (at least the half of it) to understand the basic concepts of international relations.

Another honest book that didn't deserve the criticism it recieved, and that's worth reading is Robert Mcnamara's, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. Mcnamara who was the defense secretary during the Kennedy administration and for some time in the Johnson administration, and who advocated sending the troops to Vietnam and who later became the President of the World Bank, says, " well, we screwed up in Vietnam. It was a mistake. But I am not to be blamed for what happened. I was in the dark as everybody else was in those administrations" The part I found interesting was where he attributes the failure in Vietnam to lack of Vietnam/South East Asia area experts in Washington. Despite critics harsh critique of this book, I found it an honest book. One of the 11 lessons of Vietnam for the white house is: We do not have the God Given rights to shape other countries internal government/politics (or something along this line.) One can doubt McNamara's political honesty, but one cannot doubt his academic honesty because the Vintage paperback edition, includes some reviews of the book that appeared in leading newspapers/periodicals in the US. Not all those reviews (actually the majority of them) is quite critical of the book. But Mcnamara isn't defesnive and let's his readers of the book (and the reviews) come to their own conclusions.

of Power, Realpolitik, Bismark, Raison d'tat and = Bismark's Realpolitik

PALPASA CAFE.....

Still reading but not completed. Sorry I really dont know how to write REVIEW

The book sounds good but the dialouges between characters seem not much real.

DRISHAY the main character (who is CHITRAKAR) and PALPASA (Girl, just retrune from the US) have really inteesteing dialouges.

The most sensetive part so far (for me) is when DRISHYA visits his village after a decade and finds his in different and terrible condition becaue of MAOIST.

And the first encounter between PALPASA and DRISHYA in GOA is pretty romantic.


If ur fan of COFFEE GUF ( published in KOSELI, Kantipur) its a must read book. His style of writing is just superb, I personally find Samrat Upadhya's and his style quite matching. Both interesting, sensual, romantic and the most improtanty NOT BORING.

I would also suggest:

End of the American Era by Charles Kupchan, A geopolital Gem

The Paradox of American Power: Joseph Nye, boring but insightful

American Empire: Andrew Bacevich, who talks about little change in Foregn policy, that the American Empire should use more of its military to support local powers.

Tragedy of Great Power Politics: John J. Mearsheimer Many a right winger would like. Mearsheimer thanks the us should stamp out really any power that arises democratic or not, and especially concerned that China will become rich and democratic.

Matrixrose ji,

I have read 2 of the four books you reccomended- The End of the American Era and The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. Actually the End of the American Era was sent to me by a Sajha friend (if you are reading this, thank you very much, once again.) Its a well written, well argued book, but wouldn't be of interest to a general reader. I also found one flaw (my view) in his argument: He sees the American dominance going down because of the alliances in the "unipolar world", but given the nature of American involvement in those alliances (EU, ASEAN, ARF) I think the Americans will keep on staying at the top. If scholars can predict the downfall of America, then the brilliant state department people can come up with the polices to keep American power alive. Similar arguments were made in the aftermath of Vietnam, but what happened? American power did not decline. Also this book came out when America was "unilaterally" preparing for an attack on Iraq, and Kupchan was against this "unilateral" approach. He was interviewd by the BBC (Hardtalk) when America had sent its troops, its a good interview, watch it if you have access to BBC files.

John Mershiemer is a neo realist, and I like him for that. His argument is: The structure of the international system is anarchic and there's this constant struggle for power among the players. His theory of offensive realism, thus is: don't wait.. just go and (if you ahve the power and ability) become a hegemon, because if you don't, then somebody else will. The book will not be of any interest whatsoever to general readers, so don't spend your hard earned money on it unless you want to bore yourslef to death understanding the anarchic nature of international system. This is for IR students with a realist/neo-realist tilt. The first half is the explanation of his theory.. and I thought he spent a lot of pages doing that. But well, his theory, his book..

I liked the book though. The best short, to-the-point Mershimer piece, I have read so far is, "Why we will soon miss the Cold War". This artilce written 2-3 years after the cold war, and when all those theories of democratic peace and "golden arch" were dominating the media/intelectuals, he comes and says, look all of you are mistaken. Unipolar world is not going to solve the world's problems, actually it will complicate those. Well, he was proven right by the events that followed.

arko duita ta padheko chaina...

I have just finished reading book called " kite Runner" written by Khalid Hussain. It's a really great book to read and well written. Once you start reading it you won't stop untill you finish reading whole book. It really hooks you up. If you haven't read it then i will highly recomend you to read it. This book is about Afgainstan, love and lives of immigarnts.

I have just finish reading book called "Kite Runner" written by Khalid Hussian. It's a really great book and well written. It really hooks up. If you haven't read it then i highly recomend you to read this book. Amzaing story about Afgainstan's people life.

Dont read Turner Diaries , its sickening, Do works great for white powers, FYI it motivated Timothy Mickbey (check spelling)..Bomb the Federal Building. If you are hardcore racist against any other class :P, dont read this book else you end up killing someone eventually.....I like Hitler Mein Kempf, but again I read Primo Levi's "Survival in Auswitcz and Elie Wiesel's " The Night Trilogy : Night, Dawn, The Accident" to hate Hitler so much..If you guess are interested in Holocaust read these two books.. Schindeler's List is great but

Nepali ma I want to read Palpasa Cafe (do anybody have copy) , but I have "Peet Sambad" from Narayan Dhakal- will finish by end of this month.

Any books from Noam Chomsky or Dr. Cornell West.. I havent read single one but I guess those would be great reading. However I have video speeches from them. Want to Buy? Order from www.democracynow.org

The autobiography of Lee Iacocca is a great book to be inspired. He is one of those management experts who have tuned failure in life into a bog sucess story and his book tell in detail about the work he did.

I think this book is really relevant to any Nepali who wants to build his/her career in US.

Seems like a lot of books recommended here are non-fiction. I mostly read fiction and here are my recommendations:
1. Fountain-Head (Ayn Rand)
2. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
3. Infinite Jest (David Foster Wallace)
4. About a Boy (Nick Hornby)

Ayn Rand (100%) Nice
Jean-Paul Sartre (100%) Nice
Kant (88%) Nice
Spinoza (78%) Nice

great book

All right Ashu, where is the book review? Blink was one of the very few books I read this year and you are writing a review. I'm very much interested what you have to say.

Girija is jealous of Gagan's popularity as much as NK is of Sitara.

Girija is jealous of Gagan's popularity as much as NK is of Sitara.


oops wrong thread ma parecha.

Gee, you made your point shirish babu. maybe you should start a new thread saying, NK is jealous of Sitara. As a matter of fact why don't you register with a different name and start a million thread saying the same thing? That would be pretty exciting, 'nn't it? Maybe another million people will reply to your thread and your day will be made. Your life will be so exciting after that maybe you will get a life and go travel. what do you say?
:)))))) i am laughing so much at my own joke, you don't need to bother to laugh. okie? ok!

*Gee, you made your point shirish babu*

thank you!

*maybe you should start a new thread saying, NK is jealous of Sitara.*

I did not say or started it, you basically proved it.

*:)))))) i am laughing so much at my own joke, you don't need to bother to laugh. okie? ok!*

I did anticipate your status of mind as I saw some of your other posts.

Beleive me, you did sound jealous. What ever your explanations /logics are !

I think its better to leave/rest the matter here and I promise never to raise it again if you DONT reply to this post !

Magic Seeds by V. S. Naipaul

http://www.ekantipur.com/