Book Excerpts
Ninety-Nine Windows: Reflections of a Reporter From Arabia to Africa and other Roads Less Travelled is a unique collection of columns written by Canadian journalist Thomas Froese. This intriguing book, released in 2009, features 99 newspaper commentaries on life in the Middle East and Africa. The writer’s dispatches begin shortly after 9/11 in the historic Arabic city of Sana’a, before they move to Kampala, in East Africa, where he now lives. Many of the columns also include addendums that explore Froese’s personal journey in journalism and life.
Whether he’s commenting on the troubles of the Iraq War, or the taste of Mecca Cola, or the beauty of the common bicycle in Africa, Froese often looks behind the daily news and enlightens readers about people and cultures. He writes with an easy style that also often touches on themes of spirituality.
Ninety-Nine Windows includes dozens of exceptional photos from Yemen and Uganda. Columns from Dubai, Salzburg, London and Brazil also augment the book’s collection. In Canada, the Hamilton Spectator and the London Free Press, have already published these thoughtful, on-the-ground reflections, as have international newspapers such as the Yemen Times and Uganda’s national daily the New Vision.
Now in one collection, Ninety-Nine Windows is an award-winning book to be enjoyed by anyone who appreciates travel or wants to learn more about some of the under-reported places in our global village. Proceeds are donated to the charity Save the Mothers.
To see sample columns, click below.
Table of Contents, Preface and Introduction
Section 1: First, my Lady Section 2: My Yemen Times launch. Let’s roll Section 3: Is it safe? Are you kidding? Section 4: Consider the cost Section 5: Meet the kids Section 6: War. Honour. Shame. Section 7: The lighter side of Arabia Felix Section 8: Fairness and the fairer sex Section 9: And now, a word from God? |
Section 10: I’ll be home for Christmas (Sort of) Section 11: Reflecting Section 12: An interlude from elsewhere Section 13: Welcome to Africa Section 14: Power struggles Section 15: Closer to the heart Section 16: Riddles and paradoxes Section 17: A few more light ones Section 18: Remember the mothers |
Addendums: Dating my best story; Some African studies; So, who cares?; Laughing my way to the strap; My daughter, the writer; Those wandering Mennonites; Dad Froese, meet JFK; More nakedness in court; Where’s my qat?; Monsters, ghosts and those tabloids; Hockey, eh?; God Bless America. No, really; I am a man, but I can change; Are you looking for Home?; Oops. Stop the presses; Hi Walid?; Edelweiss and Frau Mueller; My wife. Don’t miss the movie; A very short history of my malaria; Do I have to wear socks?; Please Mr. President, won’t you stay?; The boxer and the ride of my youth; Canada has a soul?; Unraveling this monkey business; The end of the world, just for Joe; A bucket of ink and a cop-fight; More on Brazil and that Euro look; About that death. Let’s talk.; In your service, my First Lady.