These objects, some taken from dead bodies, catalogue Alaine’s retreat into a dangerous depression. As the family struggles to endure the daily violence of the Middle East conflict, it is Marianna who becomes her older sister’s keeper, watching for any signal that might trigger one of Alaine’s frequent, grim excavations. But once the family escapes to America, Alaine’s newfound contentment is as alien to Marianna as her madness once was. As Marianna longs for her beloved, war-torn home, she struggles to understand that now she is the difficult sister.Patricia Sarrafian Ward mines both the stunning, exotic landscape of Beirut and the pure, defiant landscape of a child’s heart, and shows how war leaves its indelible scars on both.

    "Where are they after all these years?" was a question that haunted Zaven when he rediscovered the remnants of his teenage hobby in an old family house. The quest for the anonymous faces, frozen in black and white, was a hard and difficult journey. Two years of a door-to-door search, resulted in this trilingual (Arabic / English / French) gift book that contains a splendid collection of photos of people and places - both as they were during the Lebanese civil war and as they are today. "Lebanon Shot Twice" is neither a book about war nor a history book. It simply tells the untold and forgotten stories of those who experienced the years of madness. "Maybe it's just an attempt to foresee the memory of the future," says Zaven.

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.