Life after the U.S.pulls out of Iraq: what it will be like

There are a number of new and interesting reads at the Colchester-East Hants Public Library.

The Mess They Made:
The Middle East After Iraq
by Gwynne Dyer
As Iraq descends ever closer to civil war, no one doubts that George W. Bush's Iraq strategy has been an abysmal failure - just as Gwynne Dyer argued it would be in both Ignorant Armies and Future: Tense.
The question now is what will happen not just in Iraq but in the whole Middle East region once American troops are withdrawn.
In The Mess They Made, Dyer predicts that the Middle East will go through the biggest shake up since the region was conquered and folded into the Ottoman Empire five centuries ago.
In his trademark vivid prose, and in arguments as clear as his research is thorough, Dyer brings his considerable knowledge and understanding of the region to bear on the issue of how widespread the meltdown in the Middle East will likely be.
In five chapters, Dyer points the way from present policies and events to likely future developments in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and in the various other countries of the region, not least of which is nuclear-armed Israel.

A Three Dog Life
by Abigail Thomas
When Abigail Thomas's husband, Rich, was hit by a car, his skull was shattered, his brain severely damaged.
Subject to rages, terrors, and hallucinations - and with no memory of what he did the hour, the day, the year before - he was sent to live in a nursing facility that specializes in treating traumatic brain injuries. This tragedy is the ground on which Abigail had to build a new life.
How she built that life is a story of great courage and change, of moving to a small country town, of a new family composed of three dogs, knitting, and friendship, of facing down guilt and discovering gratitude. It is also about her relationship with Rich, a man who lived in the eternal present, and the eerie poetry of his often uncanny perceptions. This wise, plainspoken, beautiful book enacts the truth Abigail has discovered since the accident: You might not find meaning in disaster, but you might, with effort, make something useful of it.

Liquid Jade: The
Story of Tea from
East to West
by Beatrice Hohenegger
Travelling from East to West over thousands of years, tea has played a variety of roles on the world scene - in medicine, politics, the arts, culture, and religion.
Behind this most serene of beverages, idolized by poets and revered in spiritual practices, lie stories of treachery, violence, smuggling, drug trade, international espionage, slavery, and revolution.
Liquid Jade's rich narrative history explores tea in all its social and cultural aspects. Entertaining yet informative and extensively researched, Liquid Jade tells the story of western greed and eastern bliss.
China first used tea as a spiritual path. Then came the traumatic encounter of the refined Eastern cultures with the first Western merchants, the trade wars, the emergence of the ubiquitous English East India Company. Scottish spies crisscrossed China to steal the secrets of tea production.
An army of smugglers made fortunes with tea deliveries in the dead of night. In the name of "free trade" the English imported opium to China in exchange for tea. The exploding tea industry in the 18th century reinforced the practice of slavery in the sugar plantations.
And one of the reasons why tea became popular in the first place is that it helped sober up the English, who were virtually drowning in alcohol.
During the 19th century, the massive consumption of tea in England also lead to the development of the large tea plantation system in colonial India - a story of success for British Empire tea and of untold misery for generations for tea workers.
Connecting past and present and spanning 5,000 years, Beatrice Hohenegger's captivating and multilayered account of tea will enhance the experience of a steaming "cuppa" for tea lovers the world over.

Baseball Eccentrics:
the Most Entertaining,
Outrageous and Unforgettable
Characters in the Game,
by Bill "Spaceman" Lee
If you want a book on baseball eccentrics, you need look no further than Bill "Spaceman" Lee. His qualifications are impeccable.
Lee is to flaky what Picasso was to painting, and what Pavorotti is to tenors.
In Baseball Eccentrics, the Spaceman has rounded up the most outrageous group of flakes, malcontents, characters, rebels, nut jobs, reprobates, wing nuts, wackos, space cadets, head cases, goofs, free thinkers, and oddballs who ever livened up the grand old game.
Not only does he describe their most bizarre antics in often-hilarious detail, but he offers his own unique thought on their particular genre of eccentricity.

Bookworks and Networks is prepared by the staff of the Colchester-East Hants Public Library in Truro.