371. Entanglement: The Secret Lives of Hair by Emma Tarlo

BOOK REVIEW: Entanglement - The Secret Lives of Hair by Emma Tarlo

Let's face it, we women and men are especially vain about our full heads of hair. When disaster strikes in the form of alopecia in middle age or thin hair, we tend to seek out solutions and wish for a miracle.

When it's not attached to your head, your very own hair takes on a disconcerting quality. Suddenly, it's strange. Hair finds its way into all manner of unexpected places, far from our heads, including cosmetics!

Whether treated as waste or as a gift, relic, sacred offering or commodity in a billion-dollar industry for wigs and hair extensions, hair has many stories to tell.

Collected from Hindu temples and Buddhist nunneries and salvaged by the strand from waste heaps and the the combs of long-haired women, hair flows into the industry from many sources.

Entering this strange world, the author travels the globe, tracking its movement across India, Myanmar, China, Africa, the US, Britain and Europe, where she meets people whose livelihoods depend on hair.

Viewed from inside Chinese wig factories, Hindu temples and the villages of Myanmar, or from Afro hair fairs, Jewish wig parlours, fashion salons and hair loss clinics in Britain and the US, hair is oddly revealing of the lives of all it touches.

From fashion and beauty to religion, politics and cultural identity, the author explores just how much our locks and curls tell us about who we are. Full of surprising revelations and penetrating insights, this book will change the way you see hair forever.  

 

370. Tragic Shores: A Memoir of Dark Travel by Thomas H. Cook

BOOK REVIEW: Tragic Shores - A Memoir of Dark Travel by Thomas H. Cook

Pain and suffering is an integral part of life. Many countries the world over have suffered and are still suffering. In this memoir, the author has related an exciting concept of dark tourism, tourism based on all the suffering encountered through wars, suicide and other sad means.

Traveling from a slave trade fortress in Ghana to San Francisco's suicide bridge, the Golden Gate; from the battlefields of Verdun to Hawaii's leper colony; from Auschwitz to Ground Zero, the acclaimed and prize-winning crime author reflects on what these places tell us about the past and the present of the countries they belong to.

At the same time, the author's first work of non-fiction shines a light on what it means to be human.

Written in vivid prose, this is at once a personal memoir of exploration - both external and internal - and a strangely heartening look at the comforts that can be won when we confront mankind's heart of darkness.

I personally have been to Tuol Sleng in Cambodia, a genocide museum that was the site of beheadings and torture. I could almost feel the lost souls and hear the cries of those who suffered. This book was such an eye opener that it doubles both as a destination guide and exciting read. Highly recommended!