What We Are Reading Today: No Ordinary Assignment

Photo/Supplied
Short Url
Updated 07 July 2023
Follow

What We Are Reading Today: No Ordinary Assignment

Author: Jane Ferguson

This is a wonderful glimpse into a brilliant foreign correspondent.

Not only does Jane Ferguson have extensive experience reporting in conflict zones across the globe, she has a terrific ability to humanize the stories of the marginalized and voiceless.

Her fearlessness, and commitment to her craft is outstanding.

When the Taliban claimed Kabul in 2021, she was one of the last Western journalists to remain at the airport as thousands of Afghans, including some of her colleagues, struggled to evacuate.

Ferguson "has covered nearly every war front and humanitarian crisis of our time," said a review on Goodreads.com.

Afghanistan was the "Vietnam of our era,” Ferguson writes in her memoir.

She managed to dodge injury in Somalia, Afghanistan and Palestine even as she kept taking risks.

Her descriptions are carefully rendered; the stories never blur into each other.

"With an open-hearted humanity we rarely see in conflict stories, 'No Ordinary Assignment' shows what it means to build an authentic career against the odds," said the review.

 

 


What We Are Reading Today: Laws of the Land

Photo/Supplied
Updated 09 January 2026
Follow

What We Are Reading Today: Laws of the Land

  • Employing archives from Mainland China and Taiwan that have only recently become available, this is the first book to document fengshui’s invocations in Chinese law during the Qing dynasty

Author: Tristan G. Brow

Today the term fengshui, which literally means “wind and water,” is recognized around the world. Yet few know exactly what it means, let alone its fascinating history. In “Laws of the Land,” Tristan Brown tells the story of the important roles — especially legal ones — played by fengshui in Chinese society during China’s last imperial dynasty, the Manchu Qing (1644–1912).

Employing archives from Mainland China and Taiwan that have only recently become available, this is the first book to document fengshui’s invocations in Chinese law during the Qing dynasty.