Zora O'Neill
Autor de All Strangers Are Kin: Adventures in Arabic and the Arab World
Sobre El Autor
Zora O'Neill is a freelance travel and food writer. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, the New York Times, and Cond Nast Traveler, and she has written or contributed to more than a dozen titles for Rough Guides, Lonely Planet, and Moon. She lives in Queens, New York.
Series
Obras de Zora O'Neill
Etiquetado
Conocimiento común
- Nombre canónico
- O'Neill, Zora
- Género
- female
- Lugares de residencia
- New York, New York, USA
Miembros
Reseñas
Premios
También Puede Gustarte
Autores relacionados
Estadísticas
- Obras
- 16
- Miembros
- 187
- Popularidad
- #116,277
- Valoración
- 3.9
- Reseñas
- 4
- ISBNs
- 29
- Idiomas
- 3
I liked a lot about this book - for instance, the author is older (40) when she goes on her travels, and though she's mostly alone while traveling, she's married, so there aren't any sexual escapades which seem standard in so many other travel memoirs.
O'Neill accurately describes the highs and lows of language learning, including the fact that it's just plain exhausting, which is something so many people (non-language learners, mostly) don't understand. I also appreciated (and agreed with) her assertion that there's a certain advantage to learning a language as an adult - namely, because you're more confident in who you are and more willing to make a complete fool of yourself, which is a prerequisite for the speaking practice needed in language learning.
She goes into a lot of detail about the Arabic language/dialects, which was interesting at first but, since I've decided not to learn it myself, did seem like overkill and I definitely didn't get all the jokes, even with her explanation.
It was a bit on the long side. There were no chapter numbers, just headings, which is a big pet peeve of mine.
God's name was misused. The author also describes herself and others as "Christian" in the sense that they come from Christian-influenced, western nations (rather than holding Christian beliefs) which was rather confusing. I thought that could have been handled better.… (más)