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GIVEAWAY! Day of Honey by Annia Ciezadlo @freepressbooks

February 14, 2012 By Mary

Description

A luminous portrait of life in the Middle East, Day of Honey weaves history, cuisine, and firsthand reporting into a fearless, intimate exploration of everyday survival.In the fall of 2003, Annia Ciezadlo spent her honeymoon in Baghdad. Over the next six years, while living in Baghdad and Beirut, she broke bread with Shiites and Sunnis, warlords and refugees, matriarchs and mullahs. Day of Honey is her memoir of the hunger for food and friendship—a communion that feeds the soul as much as the body in times of war.
Reporting from occupied Baghdad, Ciezadlo longs for normal married life. She finds it in Beirut, her husband’s hometown, a city slowly recovering from years of civil war. But just as the young couple settles into a new home, the bloodshed they escaped in Iraq spreads to Lebanon and reawakens the terrible specter of sectarian violence. In lucid, fiercely intelligent prose, Ciezadlo uses food and the rituals of eating to illuminate a vibrant Middle East that most Americans never see. We get to know people like Roaa, a determined young Kurdish woman who dreams of exploring the world, only to see her life under occupation become confined to the kitchen; Abu Rifaat, a Baghdad book lover who spends his days eavesdropping in the ancient city’s legendary cafés; Salama al-Khafaji, a soft-spoken dentist who eludes assassins to become Iraq’s most popular female politician; and Umm Hassane, Ciezadlo’s sardonic Lebanese mother-in-law, who teaches her to cook rare family recipes—which are included in a mouthwatering appendix of Middle Eastern comfort food. As bombs destroy her new family’s ancestral home and militias invade her Beirut neighborhood, Ciezadlo illuminates the human cost of war with an extraordinary ability to anchor the rhythms of daily life in a larger political and historical context. From forbidden Baghdad book clubs to the oldest recipes in the world, Ciezadlo takes us inside the Middle East at a historic moment when hope and fear collide. Day of Honey is a brave and compassionate portrait of civilian life during wartime—a moving testament to the power of love and generosity to transcend the misery of war.

About the Author

Born in Chicago, Annia Ciezadlo grew up in Bloomington, Indiana. She received her Master’s in journalism from New York University in 2000. In late 2003, she left New York for Baghdad, where she worked as a stringer for The Christian Science Monitor and other publications for the next year. During this time, she wrote groundbreaking stories, about parliamentary quotas for women, Baghdad’s graffiti wars, militant Islamist poetry slams, the flight of the country’s Christian minority, and Iraq’s first reality tv show. Her first-person piece on what it’s like to go through checkpoints in Baghdad earned a flood of responses, and is now used by the US military to help prevent civilian casualities. Since then, she has reported on revolutions in Lebanon, crackdowns in Syria, repression in Iraqi Kurdistan, and the 2006 “summer war” between Israel and Hezbollah. Although she has covered several wars, Annia does not describe herself as a war correspondent. She specializes in articles about Arab culture and civil society, stories that explore the intersections between larger political realities and everyday activities like driving, cooking, and going to school.She has written about culture, politics, and the Middle East for The New Republic, The Nation, The Washington Post, the National Journal, The Christian Science Monitor, The New York Observer,and Lebanon’s Daily Star newspaper. Annia lives somewhere between New York and Beirut, with her husband, the journalist Mohamad Bazzi.

 Details

  • Paperback: 416 pages
  • Publisher: Free Press; Reprint edition (February 14, 2012)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1416583947
  • ISBN-13: 978-1416583943
YOU CAN READ MY REVIEW here
WANT TO WIN A COPY OF THIS BOOK? 
Contest is open to anyone over 13 years old with a US mailing address (sorry, no PO Boxes)
Contest ends on 2.28.12 Winner will be chosen by Random.org on 2.29.12
Winner will have 48 hours to respond to email or a new winner will be chosen.
This giveaway is sponsored by FREE PRESS  and ONE copy is available.

Complete the below form 

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Comments

  1. holdenj says

    February 16, 2012 at 12:52 pm

    I went back to read the review, it does look like a good book. I think I like the new cover better!
    JHolden955(at)gmail(dot)com

  2. holdenj says

    February 17, 2012 at 2:12 pm

    Daily entry 2/17. Thanks!
    JHolden955(at)gmail(dot)com

  3. holdenj says

    February 18, 2012 at 12:36 pm

    Daily entry 2/18. Thanks!
    JHolden955(at)gmail(dot)com

  4. Patricia says

    February 19, 2012 at 5:19 pm

    Sounds like a lovely, fascinating story. Count me in.

    patricia dot mariani dot esq at gmail dot com

  5. Patricia says

    February 19, 2012 at 5:29 pm

    Tweeted:

    https://twitter.com/#!/CapitalismRox/status/171284915076345856

  6. holdenj says

    February 20, 2012 at 12:37 pm

    2/20. Thanks!
    JHolden955(at)gmail(dot)com

  7. holdenj says

    February 21, 2012 at 12:28 pm

    Daily visit, 2/21! Thanks!
    JHolden955(at)gmail(dot)com

  8. Patricia says

    February 22, 2012 at 2:08 am

    Today’s entry

    patricia dot mariani dot esq at gmail dot com

  9. holdenj says

    February 22, 2012 at 12:49 pm

    Hi there! 2/22!
    JHolden955(at)gmail(dot)com

  10. 553943c8-3927-11e0-acaf-000bcdcb2996 says

    February 23, 2012 at 5:07 am

    That is interesting how they changed the cover.
    I like memoirs for the perspective they give me on places and lives I would never know otherwise.

    cjay (at) iavalley (dot) edu

  11. Mary BookHounds Jacobs says

    February 29, 2012 at 10:56 pm

    Mary Ann Woods

    An email has been sent to the lucky person named above
    The winner has 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen.
    Thanks to all who entered.
    PLEASE CHECK YOUR SPAM FOR THE EMAIL FROM BOOKHOUNDS @ HOTMAIL REQUESTING YOUR MAILING ADDRESS!

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