Book challenge blog update and Reading updates

Gilmore Girls book challenge/project, and the Mini movie challenge has its own blog now I just thought it easier that way.
So those only interested in those updates can find them with out the rest of the stuffings.

I'm reading The Storytellers Daughter - 70 pages in.
This book is intense, its fabulous, its emotional, it is well thought out, well written, it is one that I have had to add to my to buy list because checking it out is just not good enough.
This book struck a chord with me.

Some extra bonuses with the hard cover are thicker paper, and its not insanely bright white. When you have issues with colour and sight that is a god send.

I converted to Muslim a few months ago, when i found this book, it was one of two with similar titles and I skimmed what this was about before adding it to my list not really thinking anything about it one way or the other.

Saira Shah has blown me away.
She takes you on her journey literally with her, there is no sitting by the sidelines and reading about it.
You are filled with stories of a personal nature, combined with historical fact and legends.. Which is what (living) life is, or rather, what it should be.

The book is filled with tibits that you will find yourself stopping to record for your own reflection later.
It's definitely added to my to buy list. I am amazed my library had it and saddened I appear to be one of the few whose checked it out.

"The legends we choose to tell reflect the message we wish to preserve."
"If you have a myth you can be proud of where you come from. You can not be proud of a shred of a tent in the dust bowl that is a refugee camp in Pakistan. If you have a myth, you can hold your head high when the lowliest locals call you a dirty afghani and accuse you of trying to take their jobs.
If you have a myth you can quote back at them the great Afghan poet Jalaluddin Rumi: " A royal falcon landed owls, they hooted at him in anger. He replied Oh foolish ones, - "you think I am trying to unsurp your homes, but my true place is on the wrist of a king!"

(Sa'adi)"Do not become attached to something that will not endure"
He decided to create a garden that time could not destroy. He built his rose garden, his great work "The Gulistan" out of stories. It has survived for eight hundred years. "Roses" he said, "live but for days. My Rose Garden will never die"

"Towering above me, unchanging, eternal are the mountains. Down in the valley, a city of towers, and minarets sparkles in the late-afternoon sun. Kabul jan -- beloved Kabul--
lies like a jewel at my feet. I know by now that its beauty is an illusion: close up., the city is in ruins as shattered and broken as this garden, I have missed teh golden age, I have come too late.
But only because of the myth - the map of tales my family drew for me all those years ago-- can I recognize the beauty in this ruin."

This book has changed the way I think about a lot of things and identified some things I have been wrestling with lately. Things I have been trying to find on my own spiritual journey to Allah and know I know now more about what it is that I am seeking along the way.

***

I've also come to realize that one of the other books on my booklist is a scam..
I won't link the scam because I don't want anyone to think I am supporting that crap.
"A promise of hope : [the astonishing true story of a woman afflicted with bipolar disorder and the miraculous treatment that cured her]" Four chapters in and I want to set it on fire.
Seriously. But since its a library book, i shall return it. Mentioning that its part of an online med scam..
It reminded me of twilight as i read the bit I have fluffy and vague. Horrible writing.

***
I am also reading The Drowned Book.
Another AMAZING book. A library book added to the Buy list.
I stop to scribble quotes as i read because you just can't read a "Rumi" book and not.
An essential read for any Muslim or non alike.

""perfection in the mystery" whatever we love in this visable world we are sure to discover its flaws."

"I was a hidden treasure and I desire to be known." - a hadith