Beirut Fragments: A War Memoir

Rating:
Summary: good portrayal of a beautiful city destroyed by civil war
Review: I don't believe I've ever written a book review before but I wanted to recommend this book. I have not yet traveled to Lebanon but I have done alot of reading about this country and hope to visit soon. The book really gave a good picture of what it must have felt like to have lived in Lebanon during its civil war. I read the book in 2 or 3 days, couldn't put it down... After I read it, I sent it to a Lebanese friend of mine. He said it reminded him very much of his childhood. The Lebanese people are a wonderful people. So courageous... Able to find humor and beauty and wonder and appreciation in the most ordinary of things. Able to survive through years and years of turmoil. They have such an ability to adapt...and create strong community.

Rating:
Summary: An eye-opening perspective.
Review: I have read many books about the Lebanese civil war but Ms. Makdisi's book is by far one of the best. It helps provide a unique perspective and a much-needed understanding of the Lebanese civil war and a generation which lost everything that the rest of the world takes for granted. Indeed, war only looks easy from far away.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliantly captures life in beirut, the war years
Review: I was born in Beirut after the war started and left for the US just a few years after it ended. A few years ago I came across this book in a used-book store (sadly now closed) in Boston. It is incredible how well it captures the life and feelings of the people who stayed on in the city through those days. The day to day decisions, the scheduled cease-fires, the love of life that permeated through all the killing.

If you ever wondered what it was like living through the lebanese civil war, this is where you will find not just an account but a full recreation of a world slowly healing.

Rating:
Summary: The city that looked death in the face
Review: Makdisi's book is a remarkable testament to a shattered city that was raped, pillaged, battered, dismembered and physically left to die as a result of the civil war that raged from 1975 to 1990. The beauty of her writing lies in her heart wrenching simplicity and descriptive account of those terrible years seen through the eyes of a mother and teacher who witnessed the slow and lingering death of a city that she had grown to love. Every page is a testament to the people of Beirut who lived through the conflict and yet quite remarkably the passion that Makdisi feels for Beirut is heightened to dramatic effect whilst at the same time deploring the wages of war and how the city had become a playground for terrorist activities by largers players on the world scene. The people of Beirut were simply forgotten by the world and yet her love of humanity and how her hope remains unremitting is a shining example to mankind, amidst the carnage. A remarkable book, gripping and vivid, and a testimony to the belief that the human spirit can transcend all conflicts.