BEIRUT: This evocative title, which conjures up images of the iconic Silk Road, is only a foretaste of what you experience in the book. “Beyond That Last Blue Mountain” recalls the extraordinary journey of Harriet Sandys. At 19, realizing she was completely unqualified, she wondered what a girl from her background could do. Hearing about her brother’s trip to Afghanistan and reading Wilfred Thesiger’s “Desert, Marsh and Mountain” and Eric Newby’s “A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush” fired her imagination, and she decided to make that journey.
Four years later, in 1977, a letter inviting her to visit the archaeological sites of Afghanistan changed the course of her life.
After learning how to repair oriental carpets, she worked for the Afghan Refugee Information Network and decided to assess the situation of Afghan refugees at the North-West Frontier. Touched by their extraordinary stoicism, she organized exhibitions of Afghan embroideries and carpets and opened a shop.
However, many of the NGO carpet-weaving programs produced rugs of inferior quality which were unsellable. Harriet wanted to find an alternative project that women could do at home. The Ikat silk-weaving project was born. Over 12 years, she traveled through Pakistan, setting up the project despite problems and setbacks. She miraculously recovered from bacterial meningitis and pursued her humanitarian aid projects in Iraqi Kurdistan and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
After her departure, the silk-weaving project, contrary to all expectations, thrived thanks to the courage of Saleh, a 17-year-old boy she had trained in Peshawar. He brought the project back to Afghanistan and became a master weaver. The Afghan fashion event held in London in 2011 highlighted one of his creations, a stunning dark-green silk evening dress decorated with calligraphy.
“Oriot,” as she was affectionately called, defied danger, traveling in and around war zones with almost no financial support.
“Had I pondered too long and too hard on all the dangers and difficulties I might have encountered … I would have remained a secretary, regretting missed opportunities,” she said. Brave, humble and compassionate, Harriet Sandys touches our hearts in this moving true story.
Book Review: Recalling a magic carpet ride through South Asia
Book Review: Recalling a magic carpet ride through South Asia
What We Are Reading Today: ‘Quantitative Biosciences Companion in Python’
Authors: JOSHUA S. WEITZ, NOLAN ENGLISH, ALEXANDER LEE, AND ALI ZAMANI
This lab guide accompanies the textbook “Quantitative Biosciences,” providing students with the skills they need to translate biological principles and mathematical concepts into computational models of living systems.
This hands-on guide uses a case study approach organized around central questions in the life sciences, introducing landmark advances in the field while teaching students—whether from the life sciences, physics, computational sciences, engineering, or mathematics—how to reason quantitatively in the face of uncertainty.
What We Are Reading Today: Heart of Darkness: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Invisible Universe
- The story of how evidence for the so-called “Lambda-Cold Dark Matter” model of cosmology has been gathered by generations of scientists throughout the world is told here by one of the pioneers of the field, Jeremiah Ostriker, and his coauthor Simon Mitton
Authors: Jeramiah P. Ostriker and Simmon Mitton
Heart of Darkness describes the incredible saga of humankind’s quest to unravel the deepest secrets of the universe. Over the past 40 years, scientists have learned that two little-understood components—dark matter and dark energy—comprise most of the known cosmos, explain the growth of all cosmic structure, and hold the key to the universe’s fate.
The story of how evidence for the so-called “Lambda-Cold Dark Matter” model of cosmology has been gathered by generations of scientists throughout the world is told here by one of the pioneers of the field, Jeremiah Ostriker, and his coauthor Simon Mitton.
From humankind’s early attempts to comprehend Earth’s place in the solar system, to astronomers’ exploration of the Milky Way galaxy and the realm of the nebulae beyond, to the detection of the primordial fluctuations of energy from which all subsequent structure developed, this book explains the physics and the history of how the current model of our universe arose and has passed every test hurled at it by the skeptics.
This monumental puzzle is far from complete, however, as scientists confront the mysteries of the ultimate causes of cosmic structure formation and the real nature and origin of dark matter and dark energy.
What We Are Reading Today: ‘A Natural History of Shells’ by Geerat Vermeij
Geerat Vermeij wrote this “celebration of shells” to share his enthusiasm for these supremely elegant creations and what they can teach us about nature.
Most popular books on shells emphasize the identification of species, but Vermeij uses shells as a way to explore major ideas in biology.
How are shells built? How do they work? And how did they evolve?
With lucidity and charm, the MacArthur-winning evolutionary biologist reveals how shells give us insights into the lives of animals today and in the distant geological past.
What We Are Reading Today: The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs
Author: Gregory S. Paul
The bestselling “Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs” remains the must-have book for anyone who loves dinosaurs, from amateur enthusiasts to professional paleontologists. Now extensively revised and expanded, this dazzlingly illustrated large-format edition features nearly 100 new dinosaur species and hundreds of new and updated illustrations, bringing readers up to the minute on the latest discoveries and research that are radically transforming what we know about dinosaurs and their world.
What We Are Reading Today: The Virtue Proposition by Sig Berg
Sig Berg, founder of the Severn Leadership Group, explains what’s missing from traditional leadership, with its emphasis on the rules and rituals of boardrooms and C-suites, and from iconoclastic leadership, which urges you to move fast and break things.
Neither of these embrace virtues, and neither has, nor ever will, deliver consistent superior results.
There is a courageous third way: virtuous leadership.
This book speaks to men and women who witness the absence of virtues and know they can do better, says a review published on goodreads.com.
