The Writers' Table

, Geneva. Wednesday 30 November 2011, 18:30-20:00

Synthesizing recent thinking from science, philosophy, psychology and economics with the author's own reflections on freedom, identity and morality, The Battle for Compassion offers a fresh, sweeping perspective on the human condition and a deep contemplation of the basis for our priorities at this critical moment in our history. What matters, where are we heading, and what would it really take to improve the prospects for our future?

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While Amazon.com and other internet providers are increasingly serving as a way to order books, both print and electronic, there is nothing like the satisfaction of seeing and touching a good book. Here is the Essential Edge's quick guide to book stores for adults and children in Switzerland that offer good selections of English-language publications, including online access. Some hold regular readings and other events. Many non-specialist shops, including several on the French side, offer English books but with limited selections. We will soon publish a list of bookshops in France.

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Eric Roston of Nature magazine reviews James Workman's excellent book, Heart of Dryness, on Bostwana's besieged Kalahari Bushmen. But it's the water-dependent modern world that needs saving, not the Bushmen.

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When American journalist Joel Stratte-McClure decides to walk the Mediterranean Sea, it quickly emerges as a never-ending endeavour.  "Unreasonable to think anyone can achieve Nirvana until they've walked at least 5000kms!" he insists. Particularly, as he notes further, when your wife runs off with a night club bouncer leaving you devastated. Bruce Elder comments on this book which is part of an ongoing journey which Joel continues whenever he has time. For those interested, you can join Joel via his Facebook blog followtheidiot on his next leg and win a gelato.

The place to be last Thursday night was the celebrated Librairie Centrale, next to the Patriarch Café in Fernay-Voltaire. The occasion was a Café Littéraire reading by Saphia Azzedine of her first novel, Confidences à Allah, (Editions Léo Scheer).  At exactly 8 pm, several dozen cognoscenti of the latest in French literature crowded into the tiny book store, spent a few moments tasting a plentiful supply of olives and almonds, sipped a small glass of strong red wine, and then headed to the back room to listen to Ms. Azzedine explain her novel, which tells the frank story of Jbara, an adolescent shepherd girl in the Maghreb.  Jbara, is denigrated by her father, physically abused by men and eventually drifts into prostitution, but nevertheless succeeds in preserving a kind of spiritual purity and an astonishingly honest perspective on life.  She is intelligent and naïve, but  never sees herself as a victim.  Her saving grace is the intimate dialogue which she maintains with Allah. “Loving you allowed me to love myself, and that allowed me to love,” Jbara explains.

With a host of diplomats and policy wonks streaming into the city all year round, Geneva has long been known as the world’s political workshop. Yet its central location in Europe and its cosmopolitan atmosphere are now making it a leading literary centre, too, as demonstrated by the recent Sixth Biennial Geneva Writers Conference organized by The Geneva Writers’ Group. (The Group is holding its next regular meeting March 15, 2008, for prose and poetry. For further information, please see their website: http://www.genevawritersgroup.org/)

The United Nations and numerous aid agencies regularly shoot themselves in the foot by failing to understand how journalists work. All too often, press advisories and releases - many of them excruciatingly tedious - are regarded primarily as controlled promotional tools for fund-raising but not for keeping the world-at-large credibly informed about what they are doing. The end result is that potentially good stories are ignored or the organization is not taken seriously. Here are some helpful hints for those aid professionals who are serious – and courageous enough - about getting the real word across.

Not so many years ago one could count the number of dinosaur eggs that had been dug up in Mongolia and the Dakotas on one hand. Had they not been fossilized, they’d have made a large omelet.