Helpful Score: 1
The Almond Tree written by Michelle Cohen Corasanti is a fictional account of one familys struggle to overcome adversity. Utilizing knowledge of the geo-political history of Israel and Palestine, the author builds a dramatic and interesting background that makes the events believable and dramatic.
The story centers on Ichmad Hamid who grows up in an occupied country where he and his family are unwelcome and hated. Through the course of his life, we see him respond to injustice, grief and other violent losses with perseverance and intelligence following the example and wisdom of his father.
This inspiring journey of rising above devastating circumstances, refusing to resort to hate and finally finding a platform of peace is a well-written work of hope allowing the reader to walk in the shoes of another perspective.
A remarkable novel with a powerful message simply communicated.
The story centers on Ichmad Hamid who grows up in an occupied country where he and his family are unwelcome and hated. Through the course of his life, we see him respond to injustice, grief and other violent losses with perseverance and intelligence following the example and wisdom of his father.
This inspiring journey of rising above devastating circumstances, refusing to resort to hate and finally finding a platform of peace is a well-written work of hope allowing the reader to walk in the shoes of another perspective.
A remarkable novel with a powerful message simply communicated.
This book sheds light on the disgusting violence and human rights violations that have been committed against Arabic Palestinians since the 1940s. It shows the damage hatred can create, but it is also a story about great love and great sacrifice, about honoring one's roots while being true to one's self, about choosing peace instead of vengeance.
A mathematical genius, Ichmad Hamid grows up as the oldest son in an Arabic family living in a ravaged village of the Jewish-occupied Palestine. He and his family must endure brutal violence and great loss, but through it all Ichmad's noble father teaches him to treat his enemies with sympathy instead of hatred and to embrace his strengths to make something of himself against all odds.
I found this well-written book to be very enlightening and inspiring. The ideas presented in this story have the power to change the world!
I received this book free through Goodreads First Reads.
A mathematical genius, Ichmad Hamid grows up as the oldest son in an Arabic family living in a ravaged village of the Jewish-occupied Palestine. He and his family must endure brutal violence and great loss, but through it all Ichmad's noble father teaches him to treat his enemies with sympathy instead of hatred and to embrace his strengths to make something of himself against all odds.
I found this well-written book to be very enlightening and inspiring. The ideas presented in this story have the power to change the world!
I received this book free through Goodreads First Reads.
I won this book through the Goodreads First-reads giveaway.
I assume you have read the description of this book so I will not summarize the plot.
This was a hard book to read and even harder to put down. It's not a light read - there is violence and heartbreak and sadness but that's what makes it so engaging. I don't know if a reader can come away from this book without feeling more aware of how much harder life can be. At he same time the lead character has so much love and honor and compassion that it makes you want to try harder to be a better person. As a person who was raised catholic with a Jewish aunt, uncle and cousins as well as an Arabic best friend, this book open my eyes even more to Middle Eastern conflicts and tragedies and I would definitely recommend it to anyone and everyone.
I assume you have read the description of this book so I will not summarize the plot.
This was a hard book to read and even harder to put down. It's not a light read - there is violence and heartbreak and sadness but that's what makes it so engaging. I don't know if a reader can come away from this book without feeling more aware of how much harder life can be. At he same time the lead character has so much love and honor and compassion that it makes you want to try harder to be a better person. As a person who was raised catholic with a Jewish aunt, uncle and cousins as well as an Arabic best friend, this book open my eyes even more to Middle Eastern conflicts and tragedies and I would definitely recommend it to anyone and everyone.
After being persecuted for decades, even centuries, how would a victimized culture finally handle being in control? I dont know, and this is not the book of explanations. This is the story of those held back by the persecuted that have now become as hardened, paranoid and militarized as any group that ever mistreated them. This is the Palestinian point of view. One which I have only ever thought of as pitching rocks against machine guns. It is painful in its honesty, but still offers hope that we all might one day see the irrational attitudes that make it necessary to hold one group down in order to raise another. I put the book down wanting to know more about this constant struggle but also touched by the characters that rose from the page and carefully explained their hopes and fears, dreams and disasters and made me believe that there is always something any one of us can do to make this world a better place. It is a fascinating story, with captivating people living through a history that can easily be believed to be hell on earth, just needing a little help to survive, much less overcome burdens no one should be forced to shoulder. Michelle Cohen Corasanti offers a chance to see families and not monsters caught in the cross-fire of modern politics.
This story is very one sided. The Palestinians (Arabs) are innocent of a take-over, by the Israelis (Jews) of a country where until after WWII they lived together peacefully. Because of the one-sidedness, I lean toward a lower rating, except the fact that the author is Jewish. For this reason, the story is chilling, with insights that we certainly do not see in the news. Corasanti believes that the hopeless state of young Arab men lead them to violence. Am I alone in wondering if the Arab countries believe that our re-building "help" is actually occupying their country and creating the same issues? Book received in goodreads.com contest.
Ichmad is a gifted young boy in a village that must struggle in an occupied land. He wants to better himself and mostly his family. It is a hard struggle with so many barriers but he perseveres and becomes a professor in the United States. This is fiction but many of the Palestinians hate the Jewish and Jewish Israelis hate the Palestinian Arabs. Tension between them is a constant way of live in the area and some parts in the book are very heart-wrenching.
19th century author Horatio Alger achieved fame for his novels, which followed a formula of poor boy working hard gains riches. Michelle Cohen Corasanti's The Almond Tree owes a debt of gratitude to Mr. Alger, but the story of Ichmad Hamid only parallels Alger's pattern at the highest level. The Book of Job may also have been an influence on this novel, as might the last 50 years of newspapers regarding the Middle East.
Ichmad Hamid's story begins with the loss of his sister, a side casualty to the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Hamid and his family continue to suffer losses, both in terms of family members and their personal circumstances, but a hope for the future continues to burn. In brief, the novel describes Hamid's quest to improve his personal lot and through that, his family's, while the continued Arab vs. Jew conflict around them inflicts further losses upon the clan. (Of course, as a mathematician, I was definitely a fan of our protagonist, who used his skills in that field to achieve his greatest triumphs or WERE they his greatest ones??) I don't believe I can comment on the various characters of this book without delving into the realm of spoiler alerts - as such, I will avoid the temptation to discuss them. I'd like to address who lives / who dies, who 'sees the light' / who 'descends deeper into hate and despair, etc. BUT I will hold that discourse until we gather up a group who have actually read the book.)
It is not possible to read or review this book without dealing with the ongoing issues between the Israelis and the Palestinians; it is their conflict upon which this book is based. Many years ago, I read in a book about the Mossad that the agents working closest with the Palestinians usually became sympathetic to their plight and conditions not so severely as to sabotage their jobs and careers, but sufficiently to see that there was another vantage point to be noted. This book demonstrates that it is not just intelligence agents who undertake such a conversion. And that nice people sometimes don't see another side to this conflict, either.
Ms. Corasanti freely admits in her (untitled) preface that her time in Israel planted the seeds for this book. It should not be considered a spoiler to state that one of the overriding messages of this book is that cooperation and understanding between two groups of people will resolve what shouted rhetoric will not. Further, that this cooperation will need to be undertaken at the individual level, because leadership of both sides have too much at stake to be conciliatory towards the other. However, I thought that the government / power is bad message was a bit heavy-handed throughout the book, and its black-and-white nature could and should have been nuanced with various shades of gray.
This book should be required reading for anyone wishing to understand the conflict in the Middle East, and I give it high recommendations. 4 stars, and I'd go 4 ½ except most rating systems don't allow fractions.
The Almond Tree, by Michelle Cohen Corasanti, is published by Garnet Publishing Limited of Reading, UK.
Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book in return for the promise of an honest and prompt relative term (and publicly posted) review.
Ichmad Hamid's story begins with the loss of his sister, a side casualty to the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Hamid and his family continue to suffer losses, both in terms of family members and their personal circumstances, but a hope for the future continues to burn. In brief, the novel describes Hamid's quest to improve his personal lot and through that, his family's, while the continued Arab vs. Jew conflict around them inflicts further losses upon the clan. (Of course, as a mathematician, I was definitely a fan of our protagonist, who used his skills in that field to achieve his greatest triumphs or WERE they his greatest ones??) I don't believe I can comment on the various characters of this book without delving into the realm of spoiler alerts - as such, I will avoid the temptation to discuss them. I'd like to address who lives / who dies, who 'sees the light' / who 'descends deeper into hate and despair, etc. BUT I will hold that discourse until we gather up a group who have actually read the book.)
It is not possible to read or review this book without dealing with the ongoing issues between the Israelis and the Palestinians; it is their conflict upon which this book is based. Many years ago, I read in a book about the Mossad that the agents working closest with the Palestinians usually became sympathetic to their plight and conditions not so severely as to sabotage their jobs and careers, but sufficiently to see that there was another vantage point to be noted. This book demonstrates that it is not just intelligence agents who undertake such a conversion. And that nice people sometimes don't see another side to this conflict, either.
Ms. Corasanti freely admits in her (untitled) preface that her time in Israel planted the seeds for this book. It should not be considered a spoiler to state that one of the overriding messages of this book is that cooperation and understanding between two groups of people will resolve what shouted rhetoric will not. Further, that this cooperation will need to be undertaken at the individual level, because leadership of both sides have too much at stake to be conciliatory towards the other. However, I thought that the government / power is bad message was a bit heavy-handed throughout the book, and its black-and-white nature could and should have been nuanced with various shades of gray.
This book should be required reading for anyone wishing to understand the conflict in the Middle East, and I give it high recommendations. 4 stars, and I'd go 4 ½ except most rating systems don't allow fractions.
The Almond Tree, by Michelle Cohen Corasanti, is published by Garnet Publishing Limited of Reading, UK.
Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book in return for the promise of an honest and prompt relative term (and publicly posted) review.
