Journal Entry 1 by Cassiopaeia from Cardiff, Wales United Kingdom on Sunday, August 14, 2011

Description from Amazon
For two years before she left Iran in 1997, Azar Nafisi gathered seven young women at her house every Thursday morning to read and discuss forbidden works of Western literature. They were all former students whom she had taught at university. Some came from conservative and religious families, others were progressive and secular; several had spent time in jail. Shy and uncomfortable at first, they soon began to open up and speak more freely, not only about the novels they were reading but also about themselves, their dreams and disappointments. Their stories intertwined with those they were reading - "Pride and Prejudice", "Washington Square", "Daisy Miller" and "Lolita" - their Lolita, as they imagined her in Tehran. Nafisi's account flashes back to the early days of the revolution when she first started teaching at the University of Tehran amid the swirl of protests and demonstrations. In those frenetic days, the students took control of the university, expelled faculty members and purged the curriculum. Azar Nafisi's luminous tale offers a portrait of the Iran-Iraq war viewed from Tehran and gives us a glimpse, from the inside, of women's lives in revolutionary Iran.

Review from an earlier copy.
I have been reading this while the people of Egypt have for the last seventeen days taken their destiny in their own hands. Hopefully the outcome will be happier and more democratic than the result of the Iranian Revolution against the Shah of Iran and the rise to power of Ayatollah Khomeini. All of this made for very interesting reading from the perspective of recent history as well as of liberty and freedom. As regards the literature studied by the students, some of the books I hadn’t read but at least had a passing knowledge of; particularly Henry James, as I know more about the author than his work, which I will now need to rectify. I feel a need to get more acquainted with Daisy Miller!  

Journal Entry 2 by Coffee-1-OBCZ at Coffee#1, Albany Road, Cardiff in Cardiff, Wales United Kingdom on Sunday, September 11, 2011

Released 8 mos ago (9/11/2011 UTC) at Coffee#1, Albany Road, Cardiff in Cardiff, Wales United Kingdom

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

On the bookcrossing shelf up stairs.