We started out the year with Nathan Thrall’s intricate account of a tragedy that occured in Jerusalem in 2012. The story revolves around a kindergarten bus flipping and catching on fire; Thrall builds around this by providing the context from many different points of view for the reader to draw their own conclusions on why things are the way they are.
As a reader, we are given a brief timeline of events leading up to the event from the point of view of many involved in various organizations. We get a glimpse into the religious and political struggles between the various groups of people – Israelis, palestinians, the PA, Hamas, and many other displaced people. Thrall is careful about about not making a stringent argument, but rather, he tells a narrative and lets the facts speak for themselves.
The events in the book are of course all real; most names are actually the same names (with the exception of a few for safety reasons). A Day in the Life of Abed Salama was the 2024 Pulitzer prize winner for general non-fiction.
10/10. A book everyone should read to understand more about not only what is happening in other parts of the world, but because it is very relevant today. Even people actively resharing any “Free Palestine” content will probably learn something new and something Thrall has been arguing for over a decade – what freedom is there to go back to when people say “Free Palestine”?
I will warn readers that this is a heart wrenching book.