2011 F.A.B. Bookclub pick # I.❤️. F.A.B.

While I praise the efforts of this man and all he’s done, I was shaking my head at many parts. Especially after he was married and had a child, to put himself in harms way was a bit crazy. But thank goodness he found the right people to help his journey pay off.

JUST AN OPINION - NO BLURB - NO REVIEWWhen starting out this book I was unaware of the controversy fueled by a hungry press to bring down a humanitarian philanthropist in their usual dog-eats-dog modus operandi. I simply read a book by an adventurer who wanted to honor the memory of his sister in climbing K2 - the second highest mountain in the world. He not only honored his sister, but in the end honored thousands of helpless little girls in Afghanistan and Pakistan by building schools in remot...

Another book disappeared from my shelves. I also read Three Cups of Deceit: How Greg Mortenson, Humanitarian Hero, Lost His Way, Krakauer's excellent expose of the ego and lies of Mortenson because I had read it. The book was totally self-serving. Mother Teresa couldn't have written better. Ok I'm not a fan of Mother Teresa, I'm don't quite swallow whole Hitchen's The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice, but close. And so it is with Mortenson. He turned personal charity and...

Three Cups of Tea is one of the worst books I've ever been forced to read. From the first page of this memoir, the ghostwriter's sickening tone of hero worship has Greg Mortenson healing the sick, making the lame walk, and performing superhumanly selfless acts on a daily basis since his earliest childhood. Luckily, the author stops short of having Mortenson deliver his wife's baby and walking on water. What was probably intended to be an uplifting tale about how even the smallest among us can ch...

This book is driving me fricking nuts. I'm struggling to finish it, and can I help it if I feel like a bad person for HATING this book even though I totally support its main purpose and the mission of the subject??I hope not. Jeez, where do I start. The writing? It's terrible. I am now going to randomly pick a page, any page, and find a ridiculous, klunky morsel for you: "Suleman sat like a smiling Buddha next to Mortensen, his arms crossed over the beginning of a pot belly."or,"the inspiring vi...

I'm about in the middle of Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin and I'm ready to quit. First of all because when I just typed my first sentence here, I realized how sick I am of the words "Greg Mortenson". Half way through the book and the author is still immortalizing him by full name. I'm not a big fan of non-fiction but I've read plenty of third person accounts and don't remember this being so irritating in all of them. Greg (smile) built schools in the high mountains i...

While it's hard to give a negative review to a book with its heart in the right place, "Three Cups of Teas" is so full of weaknesses it'd be impossible to give it a rating with any more stars. In fact, the book's writing style alone is so poor, I feel generous giving it even two stars.Though the work Greg Mortenson is doing -- building schools in impoverished parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan sorely in need of them -- is certainly laudable, his mission seems ill-served by "Three Cups." The book,...

Three Cups of Tea contains a hint of a beautiful story. There were parts that made me tear up. Some of the parts that made me tear up were touching; other parts that made me tear up were painfully written.Greg Mortenson is really an American hero. His work in Pakistan and Afghanistan is truly amazing. David Oliver Relin is an American journalist. His work, at least on this book, is not so heroic. The following are some of my favorite, terrible sentences from the book:“And by the time the rising ...

Here are a few things I’m suspicious of:1. A book with two authors. It’s kind of like having too many cooks in the kitchen. 2. A book in which one of the two authors is the main subject of the book. 3. A book in which even though one of the authors is the main subject of the book, the book is written in third person. 4. Cultural imperialism. With these four suspicions in mind, I started in on Three Cups of Tea, which was my book club’s choice for this month. Mortenson is a quirky do-gooder who c...

I approached this book with some reservation. If nothing else several years of study in Development Studies has made me very wary of "do-gooders". As others have noted, there is a strong element of imperialism in the idea of of an American's mission to "fight terrorism and build nations" and I was quite ready to be critical about it.However I am happy to admit I really enjoyed and was inspired by the book. As Relin writes- "Supposedly objective reporters are at risk of being drawn into his orbit...