The Night Counter: If you only had 1,001 nights to live

by Alia Yunis here

This announcement just came on a regular Palestinian email I get...

Magic Carpet Ride - Book just out which helps to bridge cultures Meet ALIA YUNIS, author of the book just out: The Night Counter or read it anyway...

If you happen to see this in time and are in US Pasadena or LA area: Discussion and book signing, Sunday, July 19 1:00 p.m. Wild Girls Book Group. Books Inc. and 4 p.m., at Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 East Colorado Boulevard, between North El Molino and South Oak Knoll Avenues (626-449-5320 or vromansbookstore dot com) Pasadena (Better call either/both to be sure. July 19, 2009 1:00 p.m. Wild Girls Book Group. Location: Books Inc. ...

Little pigs and lost siblings make for decent bedtime story fodder.

But the life and times of Fatima Abdullah, the madcap matriarch of Alia Yunis’s charming debut, The Night Counter, is even better.

When the 82-year-old woman divorces her husband of more than 30 years, she leaves Detroit to live with her grandson, a struggling actor in L.A. Upon her arrival, fabled Arabian Nights immortal Scheherazade swoops in for the first of what turns out to be nightly visits, leading Fatima to believe she has 1,001 nights to live.

With nine days left, Fatima’s desperate to check the last things off her list: write her funeral instructions, marry off her grandson (P.S. he’s gay), and determine who from her dysfunctional (and disinterested) brood is worthy of her home in Lebanon.

As the four generations of stories and secrets magically unravel across America and the Middle East, you’ll be drawn deeper into the family’s touching, comical tale at every turn.

You can count on it.

Available online at amazon.com or at your local bookstore.

Also be sure to see Alia's other recommended books (she includes one of my top ten favorite writers and poets - Naomi Shihab Nye A Palestinian-American : here