Saturday Review: Paperbacks: Non-fiction

• Published in: The Guardian (London)
• Main Author: Jo Littler, PD Smith and Vera Rule
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: London (UK) Guardian News & Media Limited 01.01.2005
• Subjects: Seierstad, Asne; Stott, Rebecca
• ISSN: 0261-3077; 1756-3224

[Asne Seierstad]'s intimate portrayal of Baghdad lives before and during the American bombing doubles as a frank account of life as a war correspondent. The first half, leading up to the war, is a vivid travelogue featuring the beauty of the Tigris, a predominantly plastic Babylon, endless images of Saddam Hussein and stories of the torture of those who criticised him. En route, there are slivers of Iraqi social history: the rise of authoritarianism, Saddam's oppression of Shia Muslims, and the emergence of "children's graveyards" after UN sanctions. The second half recounts Baghdad's transition to war zone, the bloody destruction wrought by "trigger- happy" American soldiers and the deeply conflicted Iraqi responses to the invasion. Seierstad's follow-up to the bestselling The Bookseller of Kabul is a compelling and emotive read, primarily because its reported dialogue gives voice to a range of Iraqi perspectives rarely heard over here. [Rebecca Stott], author of Darwin and the Barnacle , has progressed to meatier molluscs: the oyster. Part of Reaktion's superb animal series, Stott's book doesn't disappoint. Intelligently written and lavishly illustrated, Oyster is a feast for the eyes and mind; all it lacks is an accompanying plate of the delectable bivalves. Best eaten live, your first oyster is a rite of passage, an initiation into an adult world: "the oyster tastes of the exotic, the salty unknown darkness of the sea-bed." Oysters are one of the oldest life- forms on the planet, and we've been eating them since prehistoric times. Dickens liked to go "roistering and oystering in New York". But Thackeray was appalled: eating oysters was like "swallowing a live baby". Their aphrodisiac qualities are legendary; Casanova ate 60 a day. According to Stott, oysters speak to us "of desire and unappeasable hunger and of flesh to be consumed". Sex, food, art, even philosophy, all in one book - it's an epicure's delight.