Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad, by Bee Rowlatt and May Witwit, Penguin, $22.95.
There’s not a lot of Jane Austen in this true story of an unlikely friendship between a tough-minded Iraqi lecturer on literature and a BBC journalist, but if the title reels in readers, all to the good, because this is a book to remind you of one of the best things about being a woman. Which is our connection with other women.
These two are like chalk and cheese – Bee is in London juggling job, housework and three daughters while May is trapped in the bombed-out, blockaded city of Baghdad, facing bullets and food shortages and religious persecution. At first, Bee is just after some colour about life in a war zone to go with the dismal news reports. Three years and hundreds of emails later, these strangers are calling each other sister and Bee is moving heaven and earth – and draining her own bank account – to get her friend to safety outside Iraq. Meanwhile, they share confidences about everything from loved but lazy husbands to crippling depression, from the importance of a good hairdresser to the character of Saddam Hussein. It has flat spots – doesn’t life? – but you can’t help but get caught up in their fear and their joy.
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