Reading List

I'm not sure how this became a bestseller, except that having Parade magazine behind you is almost as good as being in with Oprah. So many people, on hearing of PZ's journeys in the Karakoram, told me to read it, that I decided I really had to do so. (PZ, on the other hand, although he's met Mortenson--probably the way most Westerners who've spent time in the mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan have run into one another--has never read the book.) It's a slightly maudlin tale of Mortenson's hapless and eventually fruitful attempts to build schools in the tiny villages that dot the Northern Areas. Toward the end of the book, he's seeing madrassahs pop up next door to many of his secular schools, so it's unclear whether his attempts to counter terrorism through enlightenment will succeed. (In fact, to be honest, I think his goal was to counter ignorance, not terrorism, but editors and donors and politicians somewhat co-opted his message.) What I enjoyed most were the descriptions of the land and people, which paralleled letters PZ sent a decade ago. I still have absolutely no desire to go there.

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