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Critics' Lists: Summer 2012
6:03 am
Tue July 3, 2012

Lesser-Known Lit: Seeking Summer's Hidden Gems

Credit Harriet Russell
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Originally published on Tue July 3, 2012 1:35 pm

I know, I know. You've already started tearing through Bring Up the Bodies, pre-ordered Canada and — since you pretend to have read the first few massive volumes of his LBJ bio — uploaded Robert Caro's latest history lesson to your Kindle. Spoiler: The pres dies in the end.

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Books
2:28 am
Tue July 3, 2012

Dog Memoirs Will Fetch, Sit And Stay On Your Shelf

Credit Julie Rovner
Gromit is the purebred Pembroke Welsh corgi belonging to NPR's Julie Rovner — who says she's hoping to eventually adopt a companion pooch named Wallace.
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Originally published on Tue July 3, 2012 1:13 pm

The Morning Edition mailboxes are always overflowing with books sent by publishers. And recently, a fair number have fallen into a category you might call "dog memoirs" — books about how dogs transform their owners' lives.

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Author Interviews
2:20 am
Tue July 3, 2012

A Cautionary Tale About Transforming Afghanistan

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Credit Courtesy of the U.S. National Archives via Foreign Policy
Scores of Americans engineers worked in southern Afghanistan from the late 1940s to the late 1970s to build two large dams and a canal network. The development project soon became a vast experiment in social engineering. New villages were constructed, with schools and health clinics. A new, modern society was to rise from the desert.
Credit Courtesy of the U.S. National Archives via Foreign Policy
Scores of American engineers worked in southern Afghanistan from the late 1940s to the late 1970s to build two large dams and a canal network. The development project soon became a vast experiment in social engineering. New villages were constructed, with schools and health clinics. A new, modern society was to rise from the desert.
Credit Courtesy of Rebecca Ansary Pettys via Foreign Policy
The clubhouse, set along the river, featured nightly card games and a Filipino barkeeper who could mix a potent gin and tonic. Nearly every week brought another dance or party.
Credit Courtesy of Rebecca Ansary Pettys via Foreign Policy
The streets were lined with trees. The brick and white-stucco homes with green front lawns resembled subdivisions in the American Southwest.
Credit Courtesy of Rebecca Ansary Pettys via Foreign Policy
"It was an enchanting time," remembered Rebecca Pettys, who lived there for six years starting in 1958, when she was 12 years old. Her Afghan father had received a doctorate from the University of Chicago and married a Finnish-American woman he met in Illinois. The family moved to southern Afghanistan so he could participate in the development effort.
Credit Courtesy of Rajiv Chandrasekaran via Foreign Policy

In the early 1950s, Americans working on a huge engineering project in southern Afghanistan lived in a self-contained community. It looked like a piece of America dropped into the Afghan desert and was known as "Little America."

Credit Courtesy of Bettina Nordby via Foreign Policy
Seven-year-old Lawrence Odle and his 9-year-old sister, Bettina, stand in front of their home in Lashkar Gah in 1956.
Credit Courtesy of Bettina Nordby via Foreign Policy
The residents lived as they would have in an American town at the time. Men dressed in coats and ties. Women wore knee-length skirts. They had dinner parties and picnics, where alcohol was served.
Credit Courtesy of Bettina Nordby via Foreign Policy
Children sit on the diving board at the community pool. It was the country's only co-ed pool.
Credit Courtesy of Bettina Nordby via Foreign Policy
Children could play on the tennis court or frolic in the clubhouse. They often gathered in each other's homes to drink lemonade and listen to records of Elvis Presley and the Everly Brothers. They spent many afternoons playing along the banks of the Helmand River.
Credit Courtesy of the U.S. National Archives via Foreign Policy
In 1946, Afghanistan's king, Mohammed Zahir Shah (pointing), hired the American engineering firm that built the Hoover Dam and the San Francisco Bay Bridge to construct dams and irrigation canals in southern Afghanistan. He believed the project could transform the arid valley into a fertile and thriving oasis.
Credit Bill O'Leary / Washington Post
Rajiv Chandrasekaran is a senior correspondent and associate editor for The Washington Post.
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Originally published on Tue July 3, 2012 12:05 pm

The plan in Afghanistan was ambitious. Americans would set up a base in one of the most remote parts of one of the world's most isolated countries. The project would last many years and cost large sums of money. And in the end, Afghanistan, or at least one small part of it, would be a new, modern country.

When Americans think of large-scale U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, most would point to the Sept. 11 attacks that prompted the American invasion of the country in 2001.

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Book Reviews
11:16 am
Mon July 2, 2012

'The Age Of Miracles' Considers Earth's Fragility

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Credit / iStock
Credit Michael Maren /
Karen Thompson Walker was previously a newspaper reporter. She wrote her first book in the mornings before work.
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Originally published on Mon July 2, 2012 11:39 am

The Age of Miracles is literary fiction, but it spins out the same kind of "what if?" disaster plot that distinguishes many a classic sci-fi movie. Too bad the title The Day the Earth Stood Still was already taken, because it really would have been the perfect title for Thompson's novel.

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Arts & Life
10:55 am
Mon July 2, 2012

Has The Big Day Lost Its Appeal For New Brides?

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Originally published on Mon July 2, 2012 2:40 pm

Transcript

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

I'm Michel Martin and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. Coming up, that 4th of July feast is just around the corner and many of us are hoping to load our plates with meat, but one cook is saying, why not go vegan? Anupy Singla will share her cookbook, "Vegan Indian Cooking: 140 Simple and Healthy Vegan Recipes." That's in just a few minutes.

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