Love me anyway

Read a story, FAA to allow tablets and e-readers during all phases of flight, (at bottom, story has: First published October 31st 2013, 10:06 am). Near the bottom is this paragraph: Not to mention that passengers will sometimes sneak in a few Words with Friends turns when they think they can get away with it. “You can’t be looking at everybody all the time,” said Tiffany Hawk, a former flight attendant and the author of “Love Me Anyway,” a novel about airline culture. “People are always pretending to turn things off even when they’re not.”

I looked at Kirkus review of that book, which has this: ""Readers will find the book's two heroines well worth knowing."

And they are. I read 185 pages in 2 days. Story is solid, well paced, and has substance.

Publisher's Weekly: Though Hawk provides a fascinating snapshot of an industry seldom explored in fiction, the cycling between first person (Emily) and third person (KC) is distracting, and Hawk's prose turns didactic as the pace slackens.

I did not find the alternative narrators distracting, but I do agree that as the book reaches its last quarter the narrative style weakens.

Fun, worthwhile, nicely done.

Captain Abu Raed

I saw coming attractions for this film when I watched Hedgehog, and took it out. I did not know quite what to expect, and I was impressed by the film. It's a great little story: a janitor in  Queen Alia International Airport in Amman finds a captain's hat, takes it home, is seen wearing it by a kid who, in turn, asks him to tell him stories about his travels; at first he refuses, but is worn down by a gaggle of kids who insist on hearing his stories; he fabricates them from pieces of knowledge he has, and in the process fascinates them and himself; one other kid, Murad, is a skeptic, and deliberately breaks the spell the Captain has woven by showing three of his admirers that he is not an airliner pilot but a janitor; that boy is abused by his drunken father, who also physically abuses his wife; the Captain liberates the family form the drunkard's abuse with the help of Nour, a thirtyish female pilot who is being pressured by her father to marry, who befriends him, and, in turn, looks to him for company and guidance.

One technique that I liked was that, in scenes that build to an apotheosis, the actual act is not shown, but implied. Such a scene is when the drunkard father is going to teach his son Murad a lesson by burning his hand, the actual burning is not shown; the scene builds up with such tension that it is unnecessary to show the act itself. Hollywood does not do that; it would have shown the burning in excruciating detail.

Excellent film.