The Corner

TODAY, I LOVE PAKISTAN

This email has just about made my week:

After work today, I went to a market in downtown Islamabad with one of my colleagues. He had planned to buy a book of Urdu poetry, so we went into a fairly small bookshop with titles in Urdu and English. Outside was a man cooking kabobs and young men wearing shalwar kameez were standing idly around.

Imagine my surprise when I walked in the door, and against the side wall at eye level next to the entrance was Our Oldest Enemy by Mark Molesky. It really took me aback, to say the least. Every Barnes & Noble in America, clearly impressive, but random private Pakistani bookshop? Simply incredible.

John J. Miller, the national correspondent for National Review and host of its Great Books podcast, is the director of the Dow Journalism Program at Hillsdale College. He is the author of A Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America.
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