What book – fiction or non – touched you? Where were you when you read it? Have you bought and given away multiple copies?

While my favorite Rushdie book is by far, The Ground Beneath Her Feet, I have a special place in my psyche for Haroun and the Sea of Stories. I used it once to ignite a fire under a talented and inspiring friend who, like a stack of dry firewood rife with potential, just needed a little spark to get him going. For those who haven’t had the pleasure, you will find this a rare, highly visual reading experience…just begging to be turned into…a play? A painting? Another story? Something. The theme of silence present in the book is something I struggle with, as both threat and solace…silence like time (as the Sufi saying goes), is a sword.

This little story is dedicated to my friend, rife with potential:

While Rushdie was writing The Satanic Verses his 9 year old son Zafar (who lives with his first wife Clarissa) said it was wrong that he didn’t write books that children could read. Rushdie made a deal that the next book he wrote would be one his son might enjoy reading. The germ of the story was bath-time stories he told Zafar. Rushdie says: “I would have these basic motifs, like the Sea of Stories, but each time I would improvise–not only to please him but to test myself, to see if I could just say something and take it elsewhere.”

He began to write the novel in the summer of 1989, a few months after the fatwa.

I make a point to give away Rushdie, every chance I get!