Review: One Hundred and One Nights by Benjamin Buchholz. Book Synopsis: "After 13 years in America, Abu Saheeh has returned to his native Iraq, a nation transformed by the American military presence. Alone in a new city, he has exactly what he wants: freedom from his past. Then he meets Layla, a whimsical fourteen-year-old girl who enchants him with her love of American pop culture. Enchanted by Layla's stories and her company, Abu Saheeh settles into the city's rhythm and begins rebuilding his life.
But two sudden developments--his alliance with a powerful merchant and his employment of a hot-headed young assistant--reawaken painful memories, and not even Layla may be able to save Abu Saheeh from careening out of control and endangering all around them. A breathtaking tale of friendship, love, and betrayal, One Hundred and One Nights is an unforgettable novel about the struggle for salvation and the power of family. " Rating: Great Read! What I Thought: I want to first start off by saying a few things about this book. Where to Buy: New Jersey authors write away. By Jean Graham If writers still used manual typewriters, there would be a steady clickety-clack, clickety-clack, DING!
Throughout the Garden State. If they were still using electric typewriters, New Jersey would hum from Stokes State Forest to Wildwood Crest. Computers being virtually silent, there is barely auditory evidence of this. But rest assured that local writers are producing a bumper crop of books, and their content is as diverse as the state itself. Self-help books. Although the following books that have poured into The Star-Ledger’s office over the past year by New Jersey writers is impressive, it is by no means complete; homegrown writers are constantly adding to the list. MEMOIR/REMINISCENCE Marianne Fasbender Previty of Oak Ridge has collected 24 years of her holiday letters in “The Last Box” (Dog Ear Publishing).
“From One to Ninety-One: A Life” (University of Orange Bridgebuilder Press) is West Orange residnet Maggie Thompson’s memoir of her biracial family. Joseph G. One Hundred and One Nights - Book Review (Main Street) One Hundred and One Nights by Benjamin Buchholz My rating: 5 of 5 stars Ben Buchholz is one of the most interesting new writers I've read in the past few years. He has a quality that I am hard put to define...it has to do with a poetic flair, and a just-out-of-my-grasp dreamy reality that reminds me of the various merits of writers like Joyce, Brautigan and Pynchon. It is writing multi-layered with meaning, metaphor,and imagery. For me, it is always a challenge. The protag is an Iraqi whose life spirals down a surprising path, taking the reader on a wild and unexpected ride. The 100 and One Nights title of the book forced me to puzzle out the Scheherazade story, but my only conclusion was that Buchholz's version is no fairytale.
View all my reviews. One Hundred and One Nights By Benjamin Buccholz | Under the Covers. One Hundred and One Nights By Benjamin Buccholz (Back Bay Books, $13.99, 368 pages) Who is this author? Benjamin Buccholz is an author who writes about the war in Iraq with authority: he was deployed there as a Civil Affairs Officer from 2005 to 2006. In an essay for the Huffington Post, Buccholz had this to say about witnessing the death of a 6-year-old Iraqi girl: “While I had studied Arabic for two semesters at West Point, visited Egypt as part of an exchange program and hosted several visiting officers from Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Jordan during American officer training programs, nothing in my experience prepared me for the chaos of that scene: women wailing and pulling their hair, the father of the girl haggling over the price of his daughter’s life, the local police unwilling to intervene, and the town council members in their western suits providing a constant stream of contradictory commentary and advice.”
What is this book about? Why you’ll like it: What others are saying: Alumni Weekly: Wartime incidents in Iraq inspire novel, master’s study for officer. Army Maj. Benjamin Buchholz is pursuing a master’s degree in Near Eastern studies. Benjamin Buchholz GS spent a year during 2005–06 in the Iraqi village of Safwan as an Army civil-affairs officer with his Wisconsin National Guard unit. On his second day on the job, a young Iraqi girl was crushed by a semi-truck as she ran after a water bottle that one of the drivers had thrown out to children along the road. Buchholz, a captain at the time, arrived on the scene soon after the accident. Buchholz, who arrived at Princeton last September to begin work on a master’s degree in Near Eastern studies while he is on active duty, drew on his wartime experiences to craft the novel One Hundred and One Nights, published by Back Bay Books in December. In the book, he explores what life is like for people who have gone through three wars in the last 30 years and live with an American presence.
He aims to gain and share a better understanding of Middle East culture. Brazen Review ~ One Hundred And One Nights: A Novel, Benjamin Buchholz. After 13 years in America, Abu Saheeh has returned to his native Iraq, a nation transformed by the American military presence. Alone in a new city, he has exactly what he wants: freedom from his past. Then he meets Layla, a whimsical fourteen-year-old girl who enchants him with her love of American pop culture. Enchanted by Layla's stories and her company, Abu Saheeh settles into the city's rhythm and begins rebuilding his life. But two sudden developments--his alliance with a powerful merchant and his employment of a hot-headed young assistant--reawaken painful memories, and not even Layla may be able to save Abu Saheeh from careening out of control and endangering all around them.
A breathtaking tale of friendship, love, and betrayal, One Hundred and One Nights is an unforgettable novel about the struggle for salvation and the power of family. My Thoughts - Abu Saheeh, so he is known, appears in the small border town of Safwan. I enjoyed this novel. Overall Story - ♣♣♣♣ Plot - ♣♣♣♣
One Hundred and One Nights by Benjamin Buchholz :: Books :: Reviews. When I opened my mail in January of 2011 and found the galley of One Hundred and One Nights and accompanying blurb request from Benjamin Buchholz’s editor at Little, Brown, I was almost comically surprised. I’d gotten maybe a dozen such appeals since publishing my first novel, Mudbound, every last one of them for books about farming and/or race relations in the Jim Crow South.
This book was about the war in Iraq, and there wasn’t a dead mule in sight. The author, according to the jacket copy, was an American soldier who’d served in the war. That was enough for me, and I set it aside. I just didn’t want to go there: either to war or to Iraq, which I’d been hearing about nonstop since March 19, 2003, the day Bush started bombing Baghdad, and which I was greatly looking forward to forgetting about once our troops pulled out later in the year. Much of the power of this book lies in its ambiguity. The ray enters the market. If you’re thinking, this sounds like medicine, think again. One Hundred and One Nights by Benjamin Buchholz | Fond du Lac Public Library. The Paperback Pursuer. One Hundred and One Nights - Department of Near Eastern Studies. Benjamin Buchholz. One Hundred and One Nights.
New York: Back Bay Books/Little, Brown, 2011. 346 pp.; $13.99 paperback. ISBN: 9780316133777 After 13 years in America, Abu Saheeh has returned to his native Iraq, a nation transformed by the American military presence. Alone in a new city, he has exactly what he wants: freedom from his past. Then he meets Layla, a whimsical fourteen-year-old girl who enchants him with her love of American pop culture.
A breathtaking tale of friendship, love, and betrayal, One Hundred and One Nights is an unforgettable novel about the struggle for salvation and the power of family. “Iraq war veteran Benjamin Buchholz has written a seductive, compelling first novel that depicts war as intimate and subtle. One Hundred and One Nights. Benjamin Buchholz. One Hundred and One Nights – A Book Review - How Was Your Day | How Was Your Day. It isn’t very often, after reading a novel, that I want to know more about the person who wrote the story.
In this case, I’m not sure which was more interesting – the book or the author. In writing this review, I snooped around the internet for a little background info on Ben Buchholz, the author of the book, One Hundred and One Nights. He was schooled to be a Foreign Affairs Officer, which brought him and his family to Oman in the Middle East. One Hundred and One Nights was conceived while Buchholz was stationed in Iraq as an Officer with the Wisconsin National Guard. He had witnessed a horrific act – one of the US supply trucks had run over a little girl – and this was the catalyst for the book. One Hundred and One Nights is the story of an American trained Iraqi doctor, Abu Saheeh, who is now forced to sell mobile phones in a shack under a bridge.
This is a good – no, great – read. Buchholz also has an interesting blog: not-quite-right.net. Benjamin Buchholz: Fiction Born In A Moment Of Truth. Benjamin Buchholz served in southern Iraq with the Wisconsin National Guard. His debut novel, One Hundred And One Nights ($13.99, Back Bay), is told from the perspective of an Iraqi. The impulse to write - both in general and in specific about the Middle East - catalyzed for me on the second day of my military service in Iraq when I responded to the death of a six-year-old Iraqi girl, crushed on the road by one of our military convoys a few hundred meters from the Kuwaiti border.
Around this girl's blanketed body a crowd of perhaps two hundred people had gathered, not only Iraqis but also our young American troops, contracted drivers for the military convoy from various other countries like India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, members of the local police and town council, and my very busy Kuwaiti interpreter. Before this moment I had always considered myself a "writer" in addition to being a full-time army officer. ONE HUNDRED AND ONE NIGHTS. ONE HUNDRED AND ONE NIGHTS Jan 11, 2012 ARCHIVES | Entertainment | COLUMNS Tweet Benjamin Buchholz Back Bay ISBN 978-0316133777 346 pages $13.99 Reviewed by Masha Hamilton, who is the author of four novels, most recently "31 Hours," and the founder of the Afghan Women's Writing Project and the Camel Book Drive.
Iraq war veteran Benjamin Buchholz has written a seductive, compelling first novel that depicts war as intimate and subtle. He captures the distant rumbling of a Humvee, the dappled shadow left by a passing soldier and the ordinary dramas of sibling rivalry and unrequited love. Take the phone-card salesman, the story's protagonist. He also, it turns out, knows how to take apart and reassemble a jack-in-the-box toy as if it were a bomb. But Abu Saheeh is not an insurgent. Layla, though, inadvertently threatens to drag him back into his past. This novel carries a strong sense of place and time that comes from personal familiarity. Wisconsin soldier's debut novel about Iraq earns good reviews. The bottle of water thrown from a passing semitrailer truck attracted a little girl who desperately wanted it. It spun into the road. The tiny girl ran toward the prize, a treat for the kids who lined the road waiting for American convoys to rumble through day and night in the Iraqi border town of Safwan.
But the girl didn't reach the water bottle in time. She was crushed under a truck wheel. By the time Ben Buchholz arrived, the scene was chaotic. The little girl's body was on the roadway underneath a coarse blanket. Hers would not be the last death to affect Buchholz. "That little girl stayed with me afterwards, thinking about her and other civilian casualties," Buchholz, who was then a Wisconsin National Guard captain, said in a recent phone interview.
He didn't know it then, as he watched the chaotic and tragic events unfold, but that little girl would someday spring to life in the pages of his debut novel. From Waupun to Princeton. Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book » Blog Archive » One Hundred And One Nights by Benjamin Buchholz. Welcome to Escape With Dollycas!!!
If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed. Be sure to leave a comment! I love to hear from you!!! One Hundred and One Nights: A Novel Back Bay Books/Little Brown & Company Hachette Book Group Available Now After 13 years in America, Abu Saheeh has returned to his native Iraq, a nation transformed by the American military presence. Dollycas’s ThoughtsI originally found out about this author and this book from an article in a local newspaper. Abu Saheeh has a routine to each day and Layla interrupts that routine. The story starts out slowly and builds and builds with several unexpected twists.
Benjamin Buchholz is an amazing writer to bring this story to fruition just from his experience during his one-year deployment in Iraq with the Wisconsin National Guard and his continuing studies. I understand he is at work on his next novel and I am anxiously awaiting it. Your Escape With A Good Book Travel Agent Like this: Like Loading... One Hundred and One Nights. Untitled. December, 2011 In 2005, U.S. soldier Benjamin Buchholz deployed to Iraq as a civil affairs officer, a liaison to the local community in the border town of Safwan. His impression of that war-ravaged country is encapsulated in his "cathartic" debut novel, One Hundred and One Nights. Narrated by an Iraqi mobile phone salesman named Abu Saheeh who has returned to his native country after many years in the United States, the story is a revealing look at everyday life in an Iraq permeated by an inescapable undercurrent of violence.
After recently completing an additional assignment in Oman, Buchholz is currently working on a master's degree in Near Eastern studies at Princeton. He also writes a Middle East culture blog, Not Quite Right, and is drafting his second novel. Buchholz shares images from his time in Safwan, Iraq, and talks with Goodreads about the bustling milieu of the Middle East.
Inspiration for the character of Abu Saheeh (photo by Benjamin Buchholz, Thirteen Stares). One Hundred and One Nights, Benjamin Buchholz | baltimorereads. One Hundred and One Nights by Benjamin Buchholz Benjamin Buchholz’s One Hundred and One Nights (published this December) is the story of Abu Saheeh, an Iraqi mobile phone merchant (or so it seems) living in Safwan whose life is changed by the presence of a teenage girl named Layla. She first appears as a poor street rat – a nuisance to merchants – but Abu Saheeh ends up forming a relationship with her that effects him mentally and emotionally in more ways than one. One Hundred and One Nights opens with Layla’s first visit to Abu Saheeh’s phone store. Her innocent questions and comments about American culture make her a loveable character from the very start – even Abu Saheeh cannot judge her for two long. Her affection for American life amuses this man who once lived in America himself when he was pursuing a career in medicine.
Before he knows it he is sucked into her carefree and curious personality. –Meaghan McKeron Like this: Like Loading... One Hundred and One Nights: A Novel (9780316133777): Benjamin Buchholz. Benjamin Buchholz’s ‘One Hundred and One Nights’: War as intimate and subtle.