Last night I finished listening to the CD of "A Thousand Splendid Suns." It is an excellent novel set in Afghanistan and one I highly recommend. I chose the CD for two reasons; I was unable to obtain a copy from my local library -- it was always checked out and listening to the book allowed me to work an afghan I'm making for my grandson. The benefit I didn't anticipate was hearing the pronunciation of Arabic words. The whole experience made the book and the people much more alive.

I am also reading "Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the shadow of America's War" by Anthony Shadid, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. It too is an excellent book and I've learned a great deal about Iraq from the book.

The two books are among the 20 or on my ever-growing list of books (a hazard of working in a bookstore) to read on the Mideast region in general and Afghanistan and Iraq in particular. My primary reason for reading these books is to be closer to my son, who is serving his second tour in Iraq, and to try to understand a region I know so very little about and yet has played such a significant role in world history for more than 2,000 years.

I want to learn more the people whose lives are so very different from ours and are being/have been so greatly impacted by America in the past 20 or so years.

Although I've only read five or six books so far on that part of the world, I have already learned a great deal. I know, for example, that our current occupation in Iraq is one of countless that have occurred in that region. Average citizens are not afraid of nor intimidated by us. What bothers them, is the damage to their historic areas and their lives.

Even when/if the current occupations (Iraq and Afghanistan) end, nothing will go back to 'normal' for anyone.

I'm interested in discussing the Mideast with others. I don't mean a discussion of the right or wrongness of our being there but more of a learning experience.

I look forward to responses.