car rental in france - Travel

25 minutes before the scheduled landing of Columbia I went outside for a few minutes, only to be called back in by my girlfriend. "Theyve lost contact with the shuttle", she said. I am used to "Comm drop-outs" during the re-entry phase of a spaceflight, so I wasnt unduly worried.

However, when I returned and started listening to the NASA commentary I realised something was very wrong. Memories of the Challenger accident flashed through my mind and I knew it wasnt going to be a very good day.

This book reviews the events leading up to that day, decisions taken before and during the mission that led, ultimately, to the deaths of 7 astronauts and the destruction of Columbia. The actual events are described very well, and the reader gets a definite sense of the tragedy "unfolding" in real-time.

The authors touch a lot on the culture of management at NASA and how it affected decision making (and some of the similarities in the management of the programme that were there before Challenger)It looks into the process of the investigation, the findings and the recommendations. In short, if youve read the CAIB report, this book lays those facts out, in an easy to understand way.

The book also tells the story of individuals involved in both the decision making process at NASA and the reader is left in little doubt about some of the causes and effects that led to the accident.

In a more "human" way, the book is emotive. To many, I guess, the astronauts were just another seven people going into space, on a "routine" flight. For those of us who live and breathe the space programme they were pioneers, pushing the boundaries of exploration, as all who have ventured above our atmosphere have done. And there is nothing "routine" about going into space. The book gives a good snapshot of who the crew were and leaves one with a sense of both sadness and admiration.

In Flights of Love, Schlink continues his exploration of love with a collection of seven stories about love, not of love, neither are they love stories. Schlink dispassionately, sometime clinically dissects what love is about, what it makes us do, how it can overcome cultural barriers and prejudices, but also how dangerous it is. These stories are not only about love between a man and a woman but also about filial love (The Son) or idealised love ("Girl with Lizard").

In "Girl with Lizard", a young boy becomes obsessed with a painting that his mother used to call "that Jewish girl". A painting the boy sees standing between his mother and his father. Later, as he grows up and inherits the painting, the painting will stand between him and his girlfriends. A painting whose origin is mysterious. Where did his father get it? The boy knows that his father got it during the war, but how and why? What did his father do during the war? Obsessed with the painting the boy, now a young man, will go on a quest to find the secret hidden behind the girl and the lizard.

What would you do if one day, just after the passing away of your wife whom you dearly loved, you received a letter from her long-forgotten lover? Would you feel betrayed? Would you throw the letter away and try to forget? Or would you answer back and pretend you are the adulterous woman? For how long did she betray you? With whom? When? Why? Tremendous questions when she was everything for you, and when you believed it was reciprocal.

And what if you cant say no? Why couldnt you, like Thomas, have a wife and two mistresses and a successful professional life? Of course such a life requires very good organisation, especially when the three women live in different towns and know nothing about each other. Why cant you have all the "Sugar Peas"? The problem is that each of them wants every bit of you and of your love, and thats spoiling the sweets, your sweets. Then there is only one way to get out of this mess: running away. Until life brings you back to the three of them, sitting around you, looking at you ...

The most captivating story was "The Circumcision". A young German studying in New York falls in love with a young Jewish woman living there. Love will at first overcome the cultural differences, the past and the prejudices. But not for long.

Even if she has always been living in America, Sarah has inherited her past and with it a prejudice against the Germans because of what "they" did to her family in Germany during World War II. Whilst Andy tries to forget what his ancestors did and tries to show Sarah that the world has changed, their differences nevertheless grow to a crescendo.

Everything Andy does is so "German" to Sarah. From his orderly life to his research interest: Utopian collectivism "the [German] fascination of transforming chaos into cosmos". Sarah become obsessed by the Germans, from the tidy German towns to certain German turns of phrase such as "Polish sloppiness" or "Jewish haste".

At first Andy tries to justify the past, his ancestors behaviour, or at least to explain. But Sarah cant understand, she cant accept what she thinks is unacceptable. Andy cant accept Sarahs prejudices: "You already know everything about the Germans. And you already know everything about me." But " ... how many Germans do you know?"

"Enough, and along with those that weve been happy to get to know, there are the ones wed have rather not got to know, but got to know anyway," replies Sarah.

Andy realises he has no chance and that there is only one way he can save his love and them as a couple; to give up and to decide that they are on the same ground, to keep his thoughts to himself. He will trim his love smaller and smaller.

This story is the best. It shows how love could be a fragile object and at the same time a dangerous one. How it could help bring two people together but also keep them at a distance. Exacerbate personalities but also erase them. Sarah is obsessed by a past that she hasnt met, and Andy by the same past and a guilt that has been laid upon him and from which he tries to escape. It is a very modern and relevant story in our days of conflict between people who think they know everything about each other even if they have never met.