A Calm Storm

The blog of Sholeh Samadani Munion

Category: Books

2020 Reading Challenge

I probably started with a goal of 50 books but I kept reading and reading…and eventually ended up reading 113 books. This doesn’t include any kids books. Just mine. Only 10 were non-fiction (mostly memoirs). I needed light, fun books…

Being Mortal

Through some source I can no longer remember, I added “Being Mortal” by Atul Gawande to my Goodreads list, and snagged it from the library right after they purchased it. I’ve been telling a lot of people about it and…

Abdu’l-Baha in America

by Sholeh Loehle (originally posted at Nineteen Months) Over the last few months I read Abdu’l-Baha in America by Robert Stockman. I enjoyed the little details that were obviously meticulously researched, as well as the focus on historical context around `Abdu’l-Bahá’s…

Hidden Gem

I started reading the Kitab-i-Iqan (Book of Certitude) again this week.  It is one of Baha’u’llah’s most important books, and I realized that I hadn’t spent enough time with it, especially in light of questions that have been coming my…

Arts and music

I had the opportunity to volunteer at the 4th Annual Baha’i Choral Music Festival in May. It was wonderful to see so many people at the House of Worship. I was manning the main entrance for both performances, so I…

It has been a while

The last “Books” post was in July…and I have read a few books since then. 🙂 I am pretty sure that I’ve forgotten a few. Read: Freakonomics by Steven Levitt, Stephen J Dubner Tablets of the Divine Plan: revealed by…

Education

The first news is that my father’s newest book, Blueprint for a New World, has just been published from George Ronald, and I am reading it right now.  I helped type and proofread, but in random chapters, so it is nice to…

A little too ambitious

I picked up the abridged version of Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire the other day, just for fun, from a friend’s bookshelf. Then I borrowed Jane Austen’s Complete Novels (8 books in 1), and have read…

Secret Door

there are secrets in the way eyelashes touch skin in the way we sidestep battlefields burying our smiles in murmurs we are perfect strangers. This weekend, the first two days of the Fast (our weekend is Friday & Saturday, remember!)…was…

A Book Update

I am still reading Muhammad and the Course of Islam, but since it is such dense material I am taking my time. I finished Reading Lolita in Tehran and The Tipping Point and I just finished reading Blink, Gladwell’s more…

Explore

The whole issue of Shabbat is one that is quite perplexing. Namely, the shops are closed during our weekend. Ah well, it isn’t too much of an issue. We can still buy stuff when we need to. My intention is…

2 weeks.

I leave in exactly 2 weeks. To go here. To work in this building: wow. It has been an interesting process, the last few weeks of packing and saying goodbyes. I am trying to not become a hermit (which is…

Books!

Finished in the last 48 hours: Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress : A Novel, by Dai Sejie Funny in Farsi : A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America, by Firoozeh Dumas Currently Reading: Memories of Nine Years in…

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