Patrick Winn’s Narcotopia

In his search for an alternative narrative of the people of northern Burma, the Wa, journalist Winn, probes the CIA and DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) as well as the indigenous Wa who have supplied the world with the majority of drugs from their poppy fields. Saw Lu is a high ranking official with the Wa administration whom Winn learns the history of the Wa and about Saw Lu’s fight to change their poppy growing fields into lawful crops.

This is not only an insight into the Wa administration and the Burmese government, but the workings of the CIA and DEA and how the interference of the US government affected the Wa’s present standing. Well worth reading.

Audrey Blake’s—The Girl in his Shadow

In 1840s London, when Dr. Croft discovers all but one of the Beady family dead from cholera, he carries the remaining eight-year-old Nora to his residence. Mrs. Phipps, his housekeeper, takes care of her and soon the child recovers. But she has no family left so lives with them.

Dr. Croft spends part of his day attending to his patients, part of his day at St Bart’s Hospital and the rest, reading medical journals, dissecting dead bodies and writing papers. Nora attends school, but soon becomes interested in Dr. Croft’s laboratory and the goings on. As she grows, she becomes more knowledgeable in surgery, but what can she do with this knowledge in an era when women are forbidden to be doctors? And what will happen to Dr. Croft who has encouraged her ability if this is discovered?

Jean Craighead Gorge’s Julie and the Wolves

Miyaz, Julie’s Inuit name, flees from Barrow (now Utqiagvik) to escape from Daniel and heads south towards Point Hope, hoping to work on a ship to San Francisco. Using the skills she learned from her father as a child in the seal camp, she navigates the tundra, but loses her sense of direction. Desperate, she stays close to a pack of wolves hoping to get some food from their hunt otherwise she is going to die.
Although outdated in its use of Eskimo, the book is an insight into life within the Arctic Circle as an Inuit as well as wolf behaviour. A great story.

Mallee Stanley’s—You can’t clap with one hand

This is my seventh year at reviewing my best reads, but the first time I’m mentioning You can’t clap with one hand. It’s my third manuscript, but the first to be published. The blurb on the back cover reads:

Growing up in a South Asian household in Uganda, Guli becomes an expert at crafting successful schemes to outwit her father and his misogynistic ways. Years later, when Idi Amin seizes power, the Nile becomes a grim stream of death and Guli fails to outsmart her husband. His ambition blinds him and thrusts her in a perilous situation with long lasting consequences.

It was inspired by my time in Uganda during Idi Amin’s rule and I’ve written about some of those experiences on my travel blog on wordpress—From here to there.