It is really getting worse!

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Jun 1, 2013 at 07:32

Dr. Pipes

I could not believe that "Broken Verses" was selected. This is the most boring book that I have ever read with a silly and childish plot. I picked up the book in an Islamic book store in NYC hoping that the word verse would have something to do with the Qur'an and seeing that the author was a woman and a Pakistani was even more of a reason to read it. And i suspect that this book would not have been published here in the west unless, as I was told by a very good Indian friend, that Ms Kamila Shamsie is a famous writer in Pakistan. And to add insult to injury I was told that this book is great if you read it in the author's language (which I suspect is Urdu! Sounds to me like when we are told that one must read the Qur'an in Arabic to really appreciate it!)

But what does this book have to do with understanding contemporary Islam? Nothing not a thing

To add insult to injury we are told by Ms Deborah Amos of NPR that there is a saying in the Arab world that: "Cairo writes, Beirut publishes and Baghdad reads" and this is indeed s silly saying by our so called free press because if one examines the facts this silly saying falls apart

Yes Cairo has always been famous for its great writers the likes of Naguib Mahfouz and yes the quality of books published in Cairo is poor but they are still being published and yes Egyptians do not read their own writers as their books are written in modern classical Arabic not the language that Egyptians speak and as was pointed out by Madbouli the biggest seller of books back in the late 1990's that when ever he gets a book written in Egyptian Arabic it sells like hot cakes and readers would want more

So much for our free press

PS: Dr. Pipes: I suggest that you send your copies of your selected books and let us see what happens

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".