I'm still slogging my way through Reading Lolita In Tehran. I'm not crazy about Nafisi's writing, but it's an excellent view into another world. What does it look like when a reasonably democratic state turns totalitarian, in this case via theocracy? What is it like, especially for women, to live under fundamentalist Islamic rule? Nafisi gives you some answers to these questions, and they are deeply frightening.
This book reminds me (not that I need reminding, I think of it constantly) how much personal freedom I have, as a woman, as a Jew, as a thinker. But it also shows me how our great personal freedom works against us in a superficial consumerist society. We are free to shop, free to fill our lives with junk. We are less alert. More docile, more controllable.
I'm also about to start Chain Of Command, by Seymour Hersh. For those unfamiliar with the book, the subtitle is The Road From 9/11 To Abu Ghraib.
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