Note: The key icon
indicates member-only content.
Learn more about membership.
A Short History of Vietnam (07/09)
Vietnam's history has been one of repeated invasions and resistance (
map of Vietnam today). For most of the first millennium AD, Vietnam was controlled by the Chinese. A final rebellion in 938 led to Vietnam achieving independence until the mid 19th century when increasing parts of the country were defeated by the French. The ...
Biogas Digesters (07/09)
In The Big Necessity Rose George introduces readers to biogas digesters in rural China. Biogas digesters (often shortened to biodigesters) are permanent structures, usually constructed of cement, in which waste (human, animal and agricultural leftovers) decompose in the lower section causing the micro-organisms to release methane that is ...
The Frank Landslide (07/09)
Most of
The Outlander is fictional, but the slide at Frank, which
catastrophically plagues the closing third of the story, is based on the factual
landslide at Frank, Alberta in 1903.
Frank, Alberta was a small Canadian mining outpost that was inaugurated as a
town in 1901. On April 29, 1903, 74 million tons of limestone
slid ...
Afghan Culture and Customs (07/09)
Afghanistan's 33 million
people are made up of more than twenty
ethnic groups with their own distinctive languages and cultural mores. The largest and most dominant of these groups, politically and economically, are the Pashtuns (42% of the population), The second most populous group are the Tajiks (27%). Smaller groups include the Hazaras...
Australian Vernacular (06/09)
Being a novel from 'Oz', the pages of Breath are casually sprinkled with words not found in most non-Australians' vocabularies. While 'blokes' and 'fags' are easily recognized as meaning 'men' and 'cigarettes,' other descriptive terms remain cloaked in obscurity. To counteract this sense of puzzlement, here is a regional translation chart...
Hakawatis and A Thousand and One Nights (06/09)
Once upon a time, not terribly long ago, hakawatis, or storytellers, were
commonplace fixtures on Middle Eastern streets. As coffee-drinking gained
popularity in Ottoman times, the hakawatis moved from the streets into the
coffee houses. Hakawatis were paid by the owners of the coffee houses to draw
customers, and the best could ...
Interesting facts about the London Eye (06/09)
The London Eye, the fantastic and graceful Millennium structure that
dominates the skyline of 21st century London, is as much a character in the
novel as Ted, his sister and the mystery.
- It took seven years and the skills of hundreds of people from five
countries to make the London Eye a reality.
- Since opening in 2000, The ...
Helping Injured Birds (06/09)
The
WildBirds.com website offers the following advice if you come across an injured bird:
If you find an injured bird, make sure it is really injured before you act. Often the bird is simply stunned. It may fly away in a few minutes if you leave it alone. Birds often become stunned by flying into glass windows.
If the bird has a ...
The Language of Wales (06/09)
Wales, located on the south-west peninsula of Great Britain (the main island of
the United Kingdom)
is one of the four constituent nations of the UK, the others are England,
Northern Ireland and Scotland (
map). Its population is about 3 million (5% of the UK).
For more about the history of Wales, see the sidebar to
The ...
Very Short Histories of Afghanistan & Iraq (06/09)
Iraq and Afghanistan are countries with deep histories and multiple ethnic
and religious citizen groups.
The geographical area that today is
Iraq is regarded by historians as the site of some of the earliest human
civilizations, including the Sumerians (who lived between the Tigris and
Euphrates rivers in
Mesopotamia,
a ...
The Cuban Bolero (05/09)
The Cuban bolero is the first internationally recognized music form to originate in Cuba. Closely related to trovador songs and habaneras, boleros are songs of romance, featuring themes of love and heartbreak. The music is most often slow, sensual and deeply romantic.
The
Cuban bolero
is often confused with the Spanish bolero. The ...
The Bedouin of Saudi Arabia (05/09)
Once the undisputed masters of the desert,
Bedouin tribes have diminished over the last couple of
centuries – mostly due to governments intent on taxation and
political control – to become only about 10% of today's
Saudi population. They are still a distinct sect and
although Nayir al-...
The Metis & Louis Riel (05/09)
Louis Riel
Many of the characters featured in
The Plague of Doves
are
Metis. The Metis (historically known as the Bois
Brule) emerged in Canada in the mid-17
th Century
as New World fur traders intermarried with Cree, Ojibwe,
Salteaux and Menominee natives. While mostly French, some of
...
A Short History of Penang (05/09)
Most of the action in
The Gift of Rain occurs on the island of Penang (part of the Malayan state of Penang) situated off the northwest corner of the Malay Peninsula, in the Strait of Malacca (maps of
South-East Asia,
Malaysia and
Penang). The small, turtle-shaped island has a total
area of approximately 293 square kilometers (183 ...
The Victorian Era (05/09)
Each of Margot Livesey's four key characters relates to a specific author: John Keats, Lewis Carroll, Charles Dickens and Virginia Woolf.
Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson) and Charles Dickens were both prominent Victorians, the term used to describe people, things and events during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901). A great source ...
The 1972 Democratic Nomination (05/09)
Senator Henry Bonwiller, the presidential candidate to whom Liam Metarey acts
as closest advisor, is fictional, but the rest of the details of the 1972
Democratic nomination battle are true.
The field was crowded with men—and two women—vying to challenge President
Nixon's re-election effort. Nixon was seen as ...
Doppelgangers (05/09)
When Cassie sees a woman lying stabbed to death who looks exactly like her, with an ID that matches the identity she used for years as an undercover detective, it seems clear that she is looking at her own doppelganger.
- The dictionary describes a doppelganger (or doubleganger, from the German for 'doublegoer' or lookalike) as a ghostly...
A Short History of the Channel Islands, including Guernsey (05/09)
The Channel Islands are a group of islands approximately 30 miles off the coast of Normandy, France (
map).
They are organized into two bailiwicks: The Bailiwick of
Guernsey (made of up of the islands of Guernsey, Alderney, Sark, Herm, Jethou, Brecqhou and Lihou), and the Bailiwick of Jersey (containing the island of Jersey and a few ...
The Fisher House Program (05/09)
War veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are coming back with injuries that would have been fatal a few years ago. Medical advances mean that more young men and women are returning home with serious brain injuries and requiring artificial limbs. These vets need long periods of rehabilitation. To assist them and their families, the...
The Second Sino-Japanese War (05/09)
Joseph Needham's travels in China took place during the latter half of the
conflict known as the Second Sino-Japanese War - the largest war to take
place in Asia during the 20
th century (
map
of Asia).
The seeds of the conflict were sown during the First Sino-Japanese War
(1894-1895), at the end of which China ceded Taiwan and ...
Capgras Syndrome (05/09)
The idea of simulacrum, or impostors, has long been a subject of fascination in
fiction, and Capgras syndrome, or variations on its symptoms, often crop up in
short stories and novels. Most recently,
The Echo Maker by Richard Powers revolves around a character who suffers from Capgras syndrome after he suffers a head injury in a ...
Aleksandar Hemon (05/09)
Aleksandar Hemon's extraordinary life story is more than simply fodder for
book publicists. It informs everything he has written, for his work is
restlessly autobiographical, infused with the urgency of thinking through his
life on paper.
In 1992, Hemon was a young Bosnian writer, just two years out of the
University of ...
Donating Dresses (05/09)
Lucky's cover features a lime-green dream dress that
Phoebe plans to wear to her over-the-top 8
th grade graduation party.
That beautiful dress, the way it makes Phoebe feel when she tries it on, and the
way it makes her feel when she realizes that her parents can no longer afford
to buy it for her, embodies Phoebe's expectations ...
Vergil (05/09)
History records that Publius Vergilius Maro, better known as Vergil (or
Virgil), was born in 70 BCE. Scholars argue about his place of birth and
his early education, but legend has it that he was born the son of a farmer in Northern Italy, which
was then known as Cisalpine Gaul ('Gaul, on this side of the Alps').
Despite a ...
The Slow Food Movement (05/09)
The Slow
Food movement began in Italy as a thoughtful protest against the arrival of American fast food in Rome in the 1980's. Seeking to promote an alternative to the Western diet and way of eating, eating slowly in the Slow Food sense means to eat with a full understanding and appreciation of every single step involved in bringing ...
Five Notable Pakistani Authors (05/09)
While Indian authors have been the darlings of the literary world for the
past couple of decades, Pakistani novelists writing in English have remained in
the shadows -- but no longer. Even as their country sinks into violence, a growing
number of novelists are winning acclaim around the world. Here are five
Pakistani authors ...
Sex Abuse and the Catholic Church (04/09)
The tide of sexual abuse cases against Catholic Church officials took its toll on
William Lobdell, causing him to abandon his faith altogether. Surprisingly,
however, this may not be a widespread effect. According to a
recent survey,
while membership in most religious groups has fallen during the last two
decades,
the Catholic...
Bosnia and the Siege of Sarajevo (04/09)
The 20th century was an intensely bloody time for the Balkan region (20th century timeline & maps) as it emerged from centuries of control by the Ottoman Empire, and briefer control by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, that triggered World War I, took place on the Latin Bridge (also known as the Princip...
Surrey (04/09)
The landscape in which
The Outcast is set plays a large role in the overall feel of the novel. Much of the story takes place in the county of
Surrey, just south of London. Most of Surrey lies in the 'Green Belt' (a ring of rural land around London protected from excess development), making it a popular place of residence for ...
Little Known Facts About Robert Frost (04/09)
By the end of his long life, Robert Frost was the éminence grise of American letters, a man whose legend preceded him and who often collaborated in promulgating that legend. Yet Brian Hall depicts a Robert Frost who is distinctly more complex than the one most of us encountered in high school, that 'simple rustic,' that plain-spoken ...
Sindoor and Arranged Marriages (04/09)
With supreme and economical skill, Jhumpa Lahiri uses only a few cultural signifiers to situate her characters in space and time. Almost all of the mothers in her stories, the women from the older generation who emigrate from India to the United States with their husbands, wear vermilion powder in their hair. Called sindoor, this powder ...
The Chacapoyas (04/09)
Jackson's search for La Joya (pronounced la hoi-ya) is a search any of us could embark on, but we might find it more expedient to visit one of the easier to locate
Chachapoya sites. The Chachapoyas, the Warriors of the Clouds, lived in the Andes in what is now Northern Peru - and La Joya, one of many ruined Chachapoyan cities, can ...
The Siege of Leningrad (04/09)
The Siege of Leningrad (September 1941 - January 1944) was one of the longest and most destructive in modern history - spanning 900 days and four Russian winters. Though the actual civilian death toll can never be known it is estimated that well over 600,000 of the approximate 3 million population died, with some estimating the death toll...
Conscientious Objectors during WWII (04/09)
'This is a war story. It was not meant to be. It started as a love story, the story of a marriage, but the war has stuck to everywhere like shattered glass. Not an ordinary story of men in battle, but of those who did not go to war. The cowards and shirkers; those who let an error keep them from their duty, those who saw it and hid, those...
Interesting Facts About Botswana (04/09)
Since independence in 1966, the former British Protectorate of Bechuanaland has transformed itself from one of the continent's poorest nations into one of its most prosperous. Botswana (
map) has vast diamond wealth which has underpinned this boom (Jwaneng, the world's largest and richest diamond mine, was discovered when termites looking ...
Wolves as Totems (04/09)
Although many in the USA will associate totems - objects, animals or plants revered as a symbol of a tribe and often used in rituals - with Native Americans, totems are found in many cultures throughout the world, tracing far back into prehistory. Google the word and you'll find websites such as
animaltotem.com, devoted to helping one find...
Industrial Disasters: the Chemical Leak in Bhopal (04/09)
Bhopal (
map) is the capital of Madhya Pradesh in central India. The violent impact of the tremendous chemical leak described in
Animal's People is based on the real life chemical leak in Bhopal in 1984, which is considered to be one of the world's worst industrial disasters.
On the morning of December 3, 1984 a holding tank of stored ...
Contemporary Slavery (04/09)
On October 28, 2000, President Clinton signed the Trafficking Victims
Protection Act into law. It charges the State Department to direct and sponsor
programs that combat slavery. It also is responsible for evaluating the
abolition efforts of any nation with more than 100 slaves.
One of the primary tools the State Department uses ...
Alzheimer's Disease (04/09)
First described by German psychiatrist Alois Alzheimer in 1906, Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia. It is a progressive brain disorder in which the nerve cells in the brain gradually die off. It afflicts an estimated 26 million people world-wide, and of those, approximately 4.5 million live in the United States. ...
The Chindits (04/09)
Major General Orde Charles Wingate was a controversial figure in the British
military during WWII. He was abrasive and opinionated, with ideas about warfare
that struck those around him as either idiotic or sheer genius. Many of his
superiors were impressed by him; others thought him a madman.
Wingate was born in India in 1903. ...
The AMBER Alert Program (03/09)
The
AMBER
Alert Program is a voluntary partnership between law-enforcement agencies,
broadcasters, transportation agencies, and the wireless industry, to activate an
urgent bulletin in the most serious child-abduction cases. The goal of an AMBER
Alert is to instantly galvanize the entire community to assist in the search for
and...
The British Class System (03/09)
As mentioned in the notes at the end of
The House at Riverton, author
Kate Morton is fascinated with the whole concept of nobility and servant classes. I think many people who aren't familiar with such a strict class system, notably Americans and Australians like Morton, are also intrigued by the thought that there could have been a whole...
World War II at the Movies (03/09)
Alfred Day's attempt to face the disillusionment of war on a film set is similar to what society at the time was doing at the movie theaters. The massive movie hits of the 40s and 50s, like
To Hell and Back, allowed moviegoers on both sides of the Atlantic to relive moments of the war, if they had been directly involved, or to understand ...
Beaufort Castle and the Four Mothers Movement (02/09)
Beaufort Castle, the setting for
Beaufort, sits on a high, rocky outcropping in southern Lebanon (
map). Known in Arabic as Shqif Arnun ('High Rock'), it soars 1000 meters (more than 3000 feet) above the Litani River Valley. Its commanding,
360-degree views have made it perfectly suited for a command post or lookout, and it has been used ...
Caravaggio (02/09)
A painting presumed to be by the 17
th century painter
Caravaggio is central to the plot of
The Garden of Evil. The work found (which is purely fictional) is purported to be the artist's copy of an actual oil by Annibale Carracci, entitled
Venus with a Satyr and Cupids.
Caravaggio is one of the most fascinating and influential ...
The Yasa of Genghis Khan (02/09)
As Genghis Khan consolidated the nomadic tribes of the Asian steppe, he realized that a consistent rule of law was necessary to maintain order. He accomplished this by creating his 'Yasa' (or 'Yassa'), a comprehensive set of rules governing nearly all aspects of Mongolian life and culture. The original
Yasa ('decree' or 'order') is ...
Ken Saro-Wiwa (02/09)
In his acknowledgments, Richard North Patterson confirms that
Eclipse is
loosely based on the life and death of Nigerian writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa in 1995.
Ken Saro-Wiwa (1941-1995) was born Kenule Benson Tsaro-Wiwa in Bori, Rivers
State (a coastal state in the south of Nigeria,
map).
He was the son of Jim Beesom ...
Sign Language & Deaf Culture (02/09)
Hundreds of years of evolution have shaped American Sign Language (ASL), today the main sign language for deaf people in the U.S., parts of Canada and Mexico, and many other countries around the world. Derived in part from the personal hand signal repertoires of many deaf individuals, ASL has grown to become a fully functional language, a...
Animal Behaviors in Grief and Mating (02/09)
There have been many observations of
elephants grieving. In Joyce Poole's
Coming of Age With Elephants, Poole illustrates the depth of elephant grieving. A clan of elephants was moving towards newer territory, when suddenly one of the elephants fell over. Soon enough the other elephants noticed that one of their ...
 (1).gif)
