Readers Write

Dear Alesa:

On behalf of all our Village Readers, our profound thanks for joining us and enlightening us with your story. 
It was a most fascinating story – Teresa arriving at a totally strange location and nobody waiting for her….. and how she yearns to learn about the real life of the people in that village and learns to love  the Kurdish women she meets who open their home to her.  You have lived an extraordinary life;  your passion for learning and understanding other cultures is genuine and beautiful.  We all look forward to hearing from you when the day comes that you do go back and meet Bezma, Ara and Seema who must be by now quite a bicyclist! 
We, the Village Readers, are a group from diverse backgrounds, from different parts of the country/ the world and most of us have been getting together for over 25 years; we all look forward to hearing from you and hopefully reading your next book!
Our very best wishes for you as you keep discovering and writing!
Your friends from the Village Readers of Hudson, Ohio

Alesa:

On behalf of the Yankee Bookshop Book Club, thank you so much for taking the time to speak to us  this afternoon.  We all loved the book  and with your input as well as watching the video, it  really made us realize how fortunate we all are and how little we really do know about that area of the world and its culture. Thank you for educating us. 

You are quite the trooper and have a true joie de vivre, willing to try new things – a true role model for us all. Bezma and her family are fortunate that you are there for them. The other schools you have taught in are also lucky to have your expertise and what is obviously a true passion for teaching.

Thank you and we look forward to  reading your blogs and your next book  once you feel ready.

Marg 

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Dear Alesa,
Our book club had the honor and pleasure of being able to Zoom with you this past afternoon. I found your book very engaging and your passion honest and refreshing . I admire your dedication and commitment to the women you met and friendship you forged while teaching in Kurdistan. Thank you for further sharing your experience with our group. I am a retired Publisher’s rep who had the pleasure of selling books to libraries both Public Community Libraries and school libraries. I have always loved reading and travel and found them to expand your mind and the ability to understand others in a way that validates and gives meaning to our very existence. Thank you for illuminating that in your memoir/novel and for further sharing your experience with us today.
Sincerely,
Cheryl LaRosa, Village Readers, Hudson OH

Hi Alesa,

On behalf of the Novel Idea Book Club, I wanted to offer heartfelt thanks for joining our book club conversation this evening!  What a special discussion it was with you on our Zoom chat! Your directness, eloquence and explanations were invaluable. Many, many thanks.  We will long remember this special evening and discussion.

Best,

Susan Graves, Sugar Land, TX

Hi Alesa,

The Chapter Chicks from Bucks County, PA loved the Kurdish Bike but loved even more the Zoom Chat with you. Bravo for taking us to a part of the world that was so unique and culturally diverse. Thank you for the awesome meeting. The girls were over the moon with your time, energy , knowledge, empathy, and compassion!

~ Marianne Gardoski

Hi Alesa

It was such a pleasure to meet you today via Zoom. All of us had a great time and this shared camaraderie just does wonders for one’s soul. We learned a lot from you. In our book club, we say that any book that makes you smarter in any way is worth its value in gold. Your book was one of those books. 

~ Dolly Phadke, The Novel Women, Valparaiso, IN

Dear Alesa,

I throughly loved this well-written book and came to care for the village and the family of Ara. Thank you so much for your wonderful presentation for our book group. I am humbly sending a donation to help this lovely family’s welfare. Thank you again Alesa for writing this important novel perhaps opening others to another culture and proud people.

~ Susan Brackenbury, The Spinoffs Book Club, Santa Cruz, CA

Dear Alesa,

Thank you so much for chatting with our book club last week. The Fresh Ladies greatly appreciate your time and added insights. We loved the Power Point. Afterwards we all agreed that it really was wonderful to “meet” some of the real characters in the book.

Also, you will be receiving a donation from our club soon to help support the Kurdish village women.

~ Claire Mei, Easton, NH

Note from Alesa: Thanks! Also, here’s a shout out to Anita Craven of the Fresh Ladies, who was the first reader to figure out (or at least to let me know) that I deliberately named the lawyers Fester, Gerber & Moskowitz to echo the FGM theme — an inside joke. It’s a true delight for authors when careful readers notice things like this. Bravo, Anita!

Dear Alesa,

We are a book club of retired teachers who enjoy catching up with one another’s lives as well as discussing intriguing books. Since the Covid pandemic began, we have been connecting monthly via Zoom, a boon to those who are no longer local and can now join us. 

One of our members suggested Alesa Lightbourne’s The Kurdish Bike as our September read and we were not disappointed. It is a fascinating retelling of the author’s adventures as a teacher in a small village in Kurdistan and an amazing introduction into the Kurdish culture. When we serendipitously discovered that Alesa participates in book group discussions, we invited her to join us and the special dimension her participation added was truly wonderful. We were able to see the actual characters and locations described in the book with a superb power point presentation and then had the opportunity to discuss the book with its brilliant author. We enthusiastically recommend both the book and Alesa’s kindness in making herself available to interested readers.

~ Emily Wagner, Germantown Academy Bookies, Fort Washington, PA

Dear Alesa,

 

Greetings from the Bookworms Book Club based in Paphos, Cyprus. It’s a club that has now been going for over twenty years and still has some of its original members. What we have in common is that we are all ex pats who have all chosen to travel, live and work overseas; when we discuss a book we can draw on many experiences from Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, the West Indies and North America.It is great fun! The Kurdish Bike was a perfect book for us.

 

Yesterday we had a lock-down Zoom meeting to discuss your book and we wanted  you to know how very much we all enjoyed it. Your passion for the Kurdish culture was immediately clear and we found your writing compelling. It is a compliment to you if I tell you that it was very difficult indeed to keep our discussion strictly to the book! Your experiences in Kurdistan sparked so much debate about living overseas and the success, or sometimes failure, in feeling part of the local culture. One of us found your description of the dividing line in the staff room apt and amusing from personal experience, a radiographer had experience of transvaginal ultrasound and the effects of FGM, and we all had thoughts about the effects of war, the status of women in society and what motivates us to seek out new experiences and knowledge about different cultures.

 

We thoroughly disliked the Rabinowitz character and Theresa’s partial acceptance of him. Is the character based on someone you knew? If he is not fictional, please would you tell us what has happened to him now? We wondered why Theresa allowed him to invade her personal space?

 

I’m attaching a photo of our Zoom meeting yesterday where five members were in Cyprus and two in the UK.

We look forward to the opportunity to read more of your fiction writing,

 

With best wishes

Judith Cartwright

 

 

Dear Alesa,

 

I cannot thank you enough for your presentation this morning at our book club, for writing your book, and for working in the Middle East.  You have made a genuine impact in “closed” communities, to students, and to women around the planet.  

 

I go on trips for pleasure, you go to serve humanity.  I taught school, you changed thinking and opened hearts.  I ride my bike to try to encourage other people to ride, you ride to encourage woman to be more independent.  I ride to avoid driving the car, you ride to show women that they can drive themselves.  I read books about people who are adventurers, you are the adventurer.  I am blown away by people who do all the work it takes to write a book, you spent the time and energy to write, revise, make an audio, publish, create power point and web site, host speaking engagements.  I cringe hearing about violence, poverty, “cutting”, war, oppression, repression, injustice, you are involved, helpful, generous, a living example, experiencing first hand, making a difference, .  You are honest, humble, unpretentious, talented, professional.  Your awards are well deserved.  You effect the world in a grass roots way.  Your book will change lives and be a living legacy.  Thank you, thank you!

 

Kind Regards,

Rebecca Kleis

Aptos, CA

Life is like riding a bicycle, keep moving and you’ll stay balanced.

Our group, The Bookeez, really enjoyed The Kurdish Bike and all of the information in it. We had an especially thought-provoking discussion after experiencing/reading it. We also had a Kurdish brunch during our discussion, where we made recipes from your website and dressed up according to the spirit of the book. It was one of our best book club meetings ever!

~ Robin Hurewitz, Monroe, New Jersey

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Dear Alesa,

Thank you so much for coming to the October meeting of the Santa Cruz County AAUW Evening Book Group’s discussion of The Kurdish Bike and sharing the real life experiences behind the book. Your illustrated talk was so interesting, and, of course, it was loads of fun dressing up in those elegant and sparkly Kurdish “special occasion” dresses.

Needless to say, we greatly admire your adventurous spirit, your commitment as a teacher, your efforts to enlarge our understanding of the unique history, culture and people of Kurdistan, and your efforts to provide meaningful ongoing assistance and support to the people of “your” village

~ Joan Schwimmer and the Santa Cruz Evening “Bookies”

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Dear Alesa:

Thank you  for taking the time to Skype with our book club this evening. It was a real treat for all of us to “meet” you and hear your life’s story. Our members are still talking about the event.

We will be sure to spread the word about your awesome book – to put in our reviews and anxiously await seeing A Kurdish Bike up on the big screen!

~  Liz Ray, Mt. Vernon, VA

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Hi, Alesa. I just recently finished The Kurdish Bike, and I want you to know that it was one of the best books I’ve read in years. I loved a number of different aspects of it: the character development, the ease of the read, and the way you balanced humor and seriousness. Oh, yes, and the breadth of the vocabulary. About a decade ago, I had a near-perfect score on the verbal section of the GRE, and I must’ve looked up 40-50 words while reading your novel! Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you for sharing your gift with us. I often looked forward to curling up with that book at the end of long and challenging days. Hope you’re finding your current labors rewarding, too!  Warmly, Tom Meredith, Wernersville PA