Only Ten Books?

Oh, I finally got tagged in that whole "ten books that stayed with you" thing. Truly for someone who loves books and writing so much this is just cruel. But with a modicum of consideration, I think the following books are so close to my heart or psyche as to be inseparable.

1. Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston 2. The Gift - Hafiz (Daniel Ladinsky trans.) 3. Blood Memory - Martha Graham 4. Family - J. California Cooper 5. Rap on Race - James Baldwin and Margaret Mead 6. The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery 7. The Lonely Doll - Dare Wright 8. Jazz - Toni Morrison 9. Queen of the Desert - Georgina Howell 10. Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson

Needless to say, on a different day a different list. And at least half of those authors could have alternate books listed.

Oh F*&^K! How could I leave out The Great Gatsby, which I re-read constantly and write poems to? And Jean Nathan's amazing biography of Dare Wright? And The Autobiography of Malcolm X? And What We Talk About When We Talk About Love?

And Alice Walker just slightly off list with either The Temple of My Familiar or Possessing the Secret of Joy.

Can I make a new top ten every week?

Women You Should Know - Gertrude Bell

Who taught T.E. Lawrence everything he knew?

Who hosted salons that included, Jews, Muslims, and Christians?

Who warned of the situation we face in the Middle East almost 100 years ago?

GERTRUDE BELL

Ever since reading Janet Wallach's  Desert Queen, I haven't been able to shake the notion that Gertrude Bell needs to get her due.  For years I harboured a secret ambition to make her story into a movie.  Now I'm too late.  Soon (or as these things go, not so soon) a movie about Gertrude Bell will happen - so far starring Angelina Jolie and directed by Ridley Scott.

Writer, diplomat, camel rider, negotiator, translator, cultural facilitator - Gertrude Bell was a single woman in a world overwhelmingly male.  Even today, as a woman traveling in those regions, you feel more than other - you feel invisible or you feel probed.  Yet Bell made a home here, made a space for herself, and used the outsider perspective to see things as they were and as they were going to be.

Stuck in a bureaucratic world, many of her suggestions were ignored, and sadly, some that were swept under the rug in a transition of power have come back to haunt future generations.

I think she deserves more than a movie - maybe a whole series about her exploits as an Intelligence Officer during World War 1 in the Middle East - like MI-5 - only with lots of sand and camels.

Besides Wallach's great biography, there is a newer one by Georgina Howell, of almost the same name.  

I don't want to say so much about her - I think you might just want to read one of those books about her life - which certainly flies in the face of the stereotype of the Victorian woman.  On the other hand, so did Queen Victoria's.

(If you'd like to be a guest blogger in the Women You Should Know series, contact me with your idea for who you'd like to profile!  Ground rules:  Non-living female, not a household name, no more than 500 words.)