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A House in the Sky: A Memoir
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Scribner 2013
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Description
The spectacularly dramatic memoir of a woman whose curiosity about the world led her from rural Canada to imperiled and dangerous countries on every continent, and then into fifteen months of harrowing captivity in Somalia—a story of courage, resilience, and extraordinary grace.
The dramatic and redemptive memoir of a woman whose curiosity led her to the world's most beautiful and remote places, its most imperiled and perilous countries, and then into fifteen months of harrowing captivity—an exquisitely written story of courage, resilience, and grace

As a child, Amanda Lindhout escaped a violent household by paging through issues of National Geographic and imagining herself in its exotic locales. At the age of nineteen, working as a cocktail waitress in Calgary, Alberta, she began saving her tips so she could travel the globe. Aspiring to understand the world and live a significant life, she backpacked through Latin America, Laos, Bangladesh, and India, and emboldened by each adventure, went on to Sudan, Syria, and Pakistan. In war-ridden Afghanistan and Iraq she carved out a fledgling career as a television reporter. And then, in August 2008, she traveled to Somalia—"the most dangerous place on earth." On her fourth day, she was abducted by a group of masked men along a dusty road.

Held hostage for 460 days, Amanda converts to Islam as a survival tactic, receives "wife lessons" from one of her captors, and risks a daring escape. Moved between a series of abandoned houses in the desert, she survives on memory—every lush detail of the world she experienced in her life before captivity—and on strategy, fortitude, and hope. When she is most desperate, she visits a house in the sky, high above the woman kept in chains, in the dark, being tortured.

Vivid and suspenseful, as artfully written as the finest novel, A House in the Sky is the searingly intimate story of an intrepid young woman and her search for compassion in the face of unimaginable adversity.
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Format:
Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read
Street Date:
09/10/2013
Language:
English
ISBN:
9781451645620
ASIN:
B00A27XEMW
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Citations
APA Citation (style guide)

Amanda Lindhout. (2013). A House in the Sky: A Memoir. Scribner.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)

Amanda Lindhout. 2013. A House in the Sky: A Memoir. Scribner.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)

Amanda Lindhout, A House in the Sky: A Memoir. Scribner, 2013.

MLA Citation (style guide)

Amanda Lindhout. A House in the Sky: A Memoir. Scribner, 2013.

Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.
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Date Added:
Jun 12, 2018 15:35:43
Date Updated:
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      • bioText: Amanda Lindhout is the founder of the Global Enrichment Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports development, aid, and education initiatives in Somalia and Kenya. For more information, visit AmandaLindhout.com and GlobalEnrichmentFoundation.com.
      • name: Amanda Lindhout
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      • bioText: Sara Corbett is a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine. Her work has also appeared in National Geographic; Elle; Outside; O, The Oprah Magazine; Esquire; and Mother Jones.
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title
A House in the Sky
fullDescription
The spectacularly dramatic memoir of a woman whose curiosity about the world led her from rural Canada to imperiled and dangerous countries on every continent, and then into fifteen months of harrowing captivity in Somalia—a story of courage, resilience, and extraordinary grace.
The dramatic and redemptive memoir of a woman whose curiosity led her to the world's most beautiful and remote places, its most imperiled and perilous countries, and then into fifteen months of harrowing captivity—an exquisitely written story of courage, resilience, and grace

As a child, Amanda Lindhout escaped a violent household by paging through issues of National Geographic and imagining herself in its exotic locales. At the age of nineteen, working as a cocktail waitress in Calgary, Alberta, she began saving her tips so she could travel the globe. Aspiring to understand the world and live a significant life, she backpacked through Latin America, Laos, Bangladesh, and India, and emboldened by each adventure, went on to Sudan, Syria, and Pakistan. In war-ridden Afghanistan and Iraq she carved out a fledgling career as a television reporter. And then, in August 2008, she traveled to Somalia—"the most dangerous place on earth." On her fourth day, she was abducted by a group of masked men along a dusty road.

Held hostage for 460 days, Amanda converts to Islam as a survival tactic, receives "wife lessons" from one of her captors, and risks a daring escape. Moved between a series of abandoned houses in the desert, she survives on memory—every lush detail of the world she experienced in her life before captivity—and on strategy, fortitude, and hope. When she is most desperate, she visits a house in the sky, high above the woman kept in chains, in the dark, being tortured.

Vivid and suspenseful, as artfully written as the finest novel, A House in the Sky is the searingly intimate story of an intrepid young woman and her search for compassion in the face of unimaginable adversity.
reviews
      • premium: True
      • source: Publisher's Weekly
      • content:

        Starred review from June 24, 2013
        Canadian journalist Lindhout gives a well-honed, harrowing account of her 459-day captivity at the hands of Somali Islamist rebels. Bit by the travel bug early in her life, partly due to the stultifying conditions at home in Sylvan Lake, in Alberta, Canada, where she lived with her single mom and abusive Native American boyfriend, Lindhout was attracted to the exotic world depicted within the pages of National Geographic and vowed to “go somewhere” as soon as she could. Working at an Alberta nightclub called the Drink, Lindhout was able to cobble together money to travel over the years, eventually finding herself in Africa and the Middle East, freelancing as a photographer and journalist and having a love affair with a (married) Australian photographer, Nigel Brennan. Convinced war-torn Somalia would be the “hurricane” to make her career, in August 2008, at age 25, she and Nigel flew to Mogadishu, and, with a “fixer” and an SUV full of official “guards,” set off to view a displaced-persons’ camp but was instead carjacked by a group of kidnappers who demanded millions from the Westerners’ families. Her captors moved her frequently from hideout to hideout, and she eventually converted to Islam (“They can’t kill us if we convert,” she told Nigel), was separated from Nigel, and was raped and tortured. Lindhout attempted escape but no one came to her aid. She and Nigel miraculously survived as their families and governments dickered over ransom negotiations.

      • premium: True
      • source: Kirkus
      • content:

        Starred review from July 15, 2013
        With the assistance of New York Times Magazine writer Corbett, Lindhout, who was held hostage in Somalia for more than a year, chronicles her harrowing ordeal and how she found the moral strength to survive. In 2008, Lindhout, after working as a cocktail waitress to earn travel money, was working as a freelance journalist. In an attempt to jump-start her fledgling career, she planned to spend 10 days in Mogadishu, a "chaotic, anarchic, staggeringly violent city." She hoped to look beyond the "terror and strife [that] hogged the international headlines" and find "something more hopeful and humane running alongside it." Although a novice journalist, she was an experienced, self-reliant backpacker who had traveled in Afghanistan and Pakistan. She hired a company to provide security for her and her companion, the Australian photographer Nigel Brennan, but they proved unequal to the task. Their car was waylaid by a gunman, and the group was taken captive and held for ransom. Her abductors demanded $2 million, a sum neither family could raise privately or from their governments. Negotiations played out over 15 months before an agreement for a much smaller sum was reached. The first months of their captivity, until they attempted an escape, were difficult but bearable. Subsequently, they were separated, chained, starved and beaten, and Lindhout was repeatedly raped. Survival was a minute-by-minute struggle not to succumb to despair and attempt suicide. A decision to dedicate her life to humanitarian work should she survive gave meaning to her suffering. As she learned about the lives of her abusers, she struggled to understand their brutality in the context of their ignorance and the violence they had experienced in their short lives. Her guards were young Muslim extremists, but their motive was financial. Theirs was a get-rich scheme that backfired. "Hostage taking is a business, a speculative one," Lindhout writes, "fed by people like me--the wandering targets, the fish found out of water, the comparatively rich moving against a backdrop of poor." A vivid, gut-wrenching, beautifully written, memorable book.

        COPYRIGHT(2013) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

      • premium: True
      • source: Library Journal
      • content:

        April 1, 2013

        At age 18, Lindhout left behind a tough upbringing in Alberta, Canada, to travel the world, eventually launching a career as a TV reporter. In 2008, a few days after landing in Mogadishu, Somalia, she was abducted with photojournalist Nigel Brennan and held in chains for 15 months. Here, she explains how she survived by imagining that she was in "a house in the sky." Upbeat ending: after her release, she founded an organization to help the Somali people. With a 150,000-copy first printing.

        Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

      • premium: True
      • source: Booklist
      • content:

        Starred review from September 1, 2013
        Lindhout, with coauthor Corbett, recounts her 15 months in captivity at the hands of Somalian kidnappers in this harrowing memoir. Growing up in Alberta, Canada, Lindhout used her spending money to purchase old issues of National Geographic. As a young woman, she yearned to venture to the exotic places she saw on its pages and soon found she could save up enough money waitressing to fund months' worth of travel. Starting with Venezuela at age 19, she eventually journeyed to India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Deciding to pursue a career as a journalist, she ventured first into Iraq and then convinced Nigel, a former lover turned friend, to join her in Somalia. Four days into their visit, they were taken hostage by Somali bandits, most of whom were young teens. The kidnappers demanded outrageous ransoms from their parents, and began to treat Lindhout, far more than her male counterpart, with increasing brutality. Writing with immediacy and urgency, Lindhout and Corbett recount the horrific ordeal in crisp, frank, evocative prose. But what readers will walk away with is an admiration for Lindhout's deep reserves of courage under unimaginable circumstances.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)

      • premium: True
      • source: Library Journal
      • content:

        Starred review from September 15, 2013

        Held for 15 months in Somalia by ransom-hungry jihadists who captured her, friend Nigel, and three Somali assistants only days after she had landed in the country; shackled for ten months following an attempted escape; rotated through a series of vermin-infested rooms; raped, beaten, and left half-starved, dehydrated, and with abscessed teeth when she was finally released, Lindhout responded by founding the Global Enrichment Foundation to help the people of Somalia--a fact she mentions briefly in an entirely un-self-congratulatory epilog. That's all you need to know to appreciate this remarkably keen-eyed, honest, and radiant memoir, written with accomplished journalist Corbett. Lindhout starts with her hardscrabble upbringing in western Canada, her desire to travel fueled by National Geographic ("my world, I was pretty certain, was elsewhere"), then details trips throughout Latin America and Asia. Inspired by journalists she met to launch her own career, she did a brief stint in Baghdad, then headed for Somalia, reportedly the most dangerous country on Earth--but, as she said, "I'd always been off to one side, enjoying the good." The bad found her, yet there's less anger here than thoughtful observation and the desire that readers understand. VERDICT Moving and informative reading for everyone. [See Prepub Alert, 3/4/13.]--Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal

        Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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shortDescription

The dramatic and redemptive memoir of a woman whose curiosity led her to the world?s most beautiful and remote places, its most imperiled and perilous countries, and then into fifteen months of harrowing captivity?an exquisitely written story of courage, resilience, and grace

As a child, Amanda Lindhout escaped a violent household by paging through issues of National Geographic and imagining herself in its exotic locales. At the age of nineteen, working as a cocktail waitress in Calgary, Alberta, she began saving her tips so she could travel the globe. Aspiring to understand the world and live a significant life, she backpacked through Latin America, Laos, Bangladesh, and India, and emboldened by each adventure, went on to Sudan, Syria, and Pakistan. In war-ridden Afghanistan and Iraq she carved out a fledgling career as a television reporter. And then, in August 2008, she traveled to Somalia??the most dangerous place on earth.? On her fourth day, she...

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awards
      • source: The New York Times
      • value: The New York Times Best Seller List
subtitle
A Memoir
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      • description: Biography & Autobiography / Political
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      • description: Biography & Autobiography / Women
      • code: BIO026000
      • description: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Memoirs