description:
“‘It’s about the story.’
You are reading: Big al’s books and pals
thus begins the collection of stories by babak hodjat in the konar and the apple.
An eight-year-old boy was given the task of throwing flowers during the shah’s visit. a teenager in boot camp eager to watch episodes of a popular Japanese TV show. an adult coming to the united states, ready to make his mark in the world of technology.
these are just some of the personal experiences that shape hodjat’s intimate narrative about a boy growing up in post-revolutionary iran. the stories paint a picture of a westernized middle-class boy experiencing all the common and uncommon adventures of childhood and self-discovery.
Combining both humor and insight, the konar and the apple transcend culture to celebrate the fun, innocence and anticipation of growing up that bind us all together.”
author:
See Also: Volunteer FAQ | gatewave – Radio Reading Service for the blind
“babak hodjat is an Iranian-American inventor and tech entrepreneur with a passion for storytelling, soccer, and artificial intelligence. Born in London, Babak went to kindergarten in Idaho, attended high school in London, completed high school and college in Iran, and earned his Ph.D. in Japan. He has been living and working in California since the late 1990s.”
evaluation:
at least in my opinion, the attractiveness of a memory depends on some specific qualities of the author and the reader. Some memoirs I especially enjoy because the author and I have so much in common. I can see how they handled certain types of situations and compare it to my own thoughts and actions. but other memoirs have authors whose experiences are so different from mine due to differences in when or where they happened, our age at the time, culture, or other factors that I can’t easily put myself in their shoes. but in many ways, this kind of memoir is even better, because it gives me an insight that helps me better understand someone who, at least at first glance, is very different from me. these memories definitely fit into that second category.
the konar and the apple is the author’s story about his childhood in iran. Although he spent some time in his younger years outside of Iran, which he receives brief mentions of, the stories in this book focus on his time in Iran. for various reasons, war being the biggest, babak and his family move around the country, so we get a glimpse of what life was like for him in places ranging from remote backwaters to iran’s capital, tehran. I said it was the author’s story, but actually the best way to describe it, as he describes it himself, is his stories.
Each chapter is a story about something specific. reads something like a series of short stories with the obvious differences, that the stories are true and because it is about the author’s experiences, they all come together. each story stands on its own. sometimes a story may repeat a fact or provide some background needed to understand the story that was also included in another story, but I didn’t find this annoying because it reminded me of something pertinent to the current story and I realized the positive of doing this, allowing each story to stand alone.
Overall, I found this to be an enjoyable and enlightening read. i think it gave me a better idea of how iran changed during the period in question. It made me realize how different it is to live there than my own life. but I also saw some things, some trivial, some not so, that made me realize that as humans we still have a lot in common, even if there are huge differences in the various cultures and places we live in.
See Also: Free Nonfiction eBooks
shop now at: amazon us amazon uk
formatting/typo issues:
no significant issues
rating: **** four stars
reviewed by: bigal
approximate word count: 85-90,000 words
See Also: Where To Sell Comic Books Online & Offline: Best Places 2022