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    A House in the Sky: A Memoir
    A House in the Sky: A Memoir
    A House in the Sky: A Memoir
    Audiobook13 hours

    A House in the Sky: A Memoir

    Written by Amanda Lindhout and Sara Corbett

    Narrated by Amanda Lindhout

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    The New York Times bestselling memoir of a woman whose curiosity led her to the world’s most remote places and then into fifteen months of captivity: “Exquisitely told…A young woman’s harrowing coming-of-age story and an extraordinary narrative of forgiveness and spiritual triumph” (The New York Times Book Review).

    As a child, Amanda Lindhout escaped a violent household by paging through issues of National Geographic and imagining herself visiting its exotic locales. At the age of nineteen, working as a cocktail waitress, 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 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.

    Vivid and suspenseful, as artfully written as the finest novel, A House in the Sky is “a searingly unsentimental account. Ultimately it is compassion—for her naïve younger self, for her kidnappers—that becomes the key to Lindhout’s survival” (O, The Oprah Magazine).
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateSep 10, 2013
    ISBN9781442367494
    Author

    Amanda Lindhout

    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.

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    Reviews for A House in the Sky

    4.5/5

    393 ratings37 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This book is so good. Heart wrenching but so good.
    • 5/5
      Canadian Amanda Lindhout was the typical young person of her day, backpacking as many countries as possible, in her case, inspired by reading thrift store copies of National Geographic. She earned money to pay for the travels from waitressing tips, working to save enough to travel and returning to work when funds were depleted. When she decided to try and earn her way as a freelance journalist - meaning without qualifications or affiliations - she lost carefree backpacker status and entered "the most dangerous place in the world" ignoring the risks. She admitted that it was naive. She and her photographer partner were captured after just three days. What followed was 460 days of being brutalized and tortured, with more severity for Lindhout, because she was a woman. Her ability to to mentally remove herself from the savage atrocities by building an imaginary house in the sky and other such mind games helped her through the nightmare. Her experiences in this book helps to partly understand the mindset of the captors although it’s a long way from understanding how a group of men can justify these actions. She is to be thoroughly praised for her sense of forgiveness and for creating the Global Enrichment Foundation offering, among other benefits, university scholarships to women in Somalia. I'm sure her recovery will require a lifetime but Lindhout shows a capacity for the human spirit that is inspirational. It is difficult to rate memoirs at the best of times and in this case more so because of the subject matter. The second half of the book relates the time she was held hostage and is well-written without becoming emotional or sentimental in any way. However, the first half of the book describing the minutiae of early travels was a tad long.
    • 5/5
      I watched a dateline episode about this story that prompted me to read this book. I am so glad I did. What this women went through to survive is unbelievable. Definitely changed my outlook on my life and what I take for granted daily
    • 4/5
      Amanda writes a compelling story that is entertaining and engaging. Worth a listen.
    • 5/5
      Very well done. Author did excellent job of reading her own memoir.
    • 5/5
      I read a lot of books this one hit home. I too am an avid traveller woman in my 20s who thinks the best in people. This is a book every young traveler must read. What a courageous woman.
    • 4/5
      Harrowing memoir of Amanda Lindhout’s fifteen-month captivity by Somali extremists in 2008-2009. The book starts with Lindhout’s childhood in Canada and outlines how she became interested in traveling the world. It covers her early trips to South America, Guatemala, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq, and her attempts to make a career in journalism. The vast majority focuses on her ordeal in Somalia. During her captivity, she endured physical torments and abuse.

      She is accompanied to Somalia by photojournalist Nigel Brennan. The two paid for security and bodyguards, but despite their attempts at ensuring safety, their plans were sold to extremists, and they were captured. This is a difficult book to read in places. Lindhout does not shy away from disclosing the rapes and abuses she suffered but does not dwell on explicit details.

      It is a well-told and engrossing read. It contains quite a bit about Islam, as the two captives asked for a copy of the Koran in order to better understand their abductors. Somehow Lindhout maintains her optimism when it would be easy to succumb to despair. The theme of forgiveness pervades the narrative. She has formed a non-profit organization to support education in Somalia.

      “I choose to forgive the people who took my freedom and abused me, despite the fact that what they were doing was absolutely wrong. I choose also to forgive myself for the impact that my decision to go to Somalia had on family and friends at home. Forgiving is not an easy thing to do.…Some days I get there and other days I don’t. More than anything else, it’s what has helped me move forward with my life.”
    • 3/5
      Amanda Lindhout was a young lady from Canada whose dream had always been to travel. She was in love with National Geographic magazines and, from a very young age, wanted to go to the places she saw in those pages.She gets a job as a waitress, serving high-end clients and makes enough money to begin her travelling dream. She goes to many countries including Africa, Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan & Iraq. She stays on her trips long enough for her money to end, then goes home and makes enough money to travel some more. Amanda takes on a job as a television reporter. While doing that job in Somalia, she is captured and taken hostage. She is held hostage for 460 days. She is abused and becomes Islamic to better her chances of surviving. This was an absolute nightmare for this woman. I can't even imagine the fear she must have felt. Bravo for sharing this story with us.
    • 4/5
      This one is a tough one to review. Fir the first third of the book, I wondered why I was reading it. It was a straight travelogue, and the person who was writing the memoir was not very likeable at that point. I persevered though because the book was a gift. Up to about halfway, I nearly put it away many more times. Then after the hallway point I couldn't put the book down. The story that Amanda Lindhout tells about her 15 month of captivity in Somalia is heartbreaking and gut-wrenching. Seeing how she made it through her ordeal is a testament to human resilience. My heart broke for her over and over as she endured privation, bondage, starvation, torture and rape. Amanda is a Canadian like me, and i myself like she does, give thanks every day for this beautiful country of ours. This book is extremely well-written, and unfolds page-after-page like an excellent and suspenseful fiction book.The last half of the book was extremely captivating and it drew me in totally I would like to thank Amanda for sharing her story. I pray that she continues to heal and grow stronger every day, and that she finds the comfort and solace that she so deserves. .
    • 3/5
      This woman's story is an amazing example of the will to live. She is obviously a very strong person. However, I found some of the writing to be tedious and I started skimming bits of the book. I was also frustrated in that, while her story is worth telling, she is the one who chose to travel to a war-torn country... and there are consequences.
    • 4/5
      This book was difficult to read, yet I couldn't put it down. There was one night that I got to the parts that no female ever wants to read about actions taken towards another female, and I seriously couldn't sleep until after sunrise. I'm not sure a book has ever freaked me out so much. But, I'm seriously glad so much good has come out of what happened and thankful that both Amanda and Nigel got out alive.
    • 4/5
      This is an important book about a Canadian journalist (Amanda Lindhout) who was kidnapped in Somalia and held for over a year. She tells about the treatment (including torture and sexual assault) that she endured, where and how she found strength, and how she survived both physically and emotionally. It is a very honest portrait, well written and worth reading.
    • 5/5
      A House in the Sky, Amanda Lindhout’s account of her capture by Somali jihadists and of being held 460 days for ransom, is extra-ordinary in the literal sense of the word. Her book is not the fruit of a prudent decision. But I tell you, it is a tale worth her telling and our hearing.Listen to her, afterward:“I choose to forgive the people who took my freedom from me and abused me, despite the fact that what they were doing was absolutely wrong. I choose also to forgive myself for the impact that my decision to go to Somalia had on family and friends at home. Forgiving is not an easy thing to do. Some days it’s no more than a distant spot on the horizon. I look toward it. I point my feet in its direction. Some days I get there and other days I don’t. More than anything else, though, it’s what has helped me move forward with my life.”The “abuse” of which she speaks, by the way, encompasses just about all that word can mean.
    • 4/5
      4.25 starsIn 2008, Canadian journalist Amanda Lindhout travelled to Somalia with Australian photographer, Nigel Brennen. While there, they (along with 3 Somalian escorts) were kidnapped and held for ransom. Amanda and Nigel were held for over a year before their families, with the help of a professional negotiator, came up with part of the money the kidnappers had originally asked for to get them released.Amanda not only tells her story in the book; she narrates the audio. As the book was coming close to the end, I marveled that she was not only able to write her story, but she is able to narrate it! The book started a bit slower, as she told of her life growing up in Alberta, Canada (fairly local to me!), before she caught the “travel bug” and she wanted to travel all over. She tells stories of some of the places she travelled before deciding to head into Somalia to hopefully write a story to “make” her career. But, the pace of the book just picks up more and more as the book goes on. At the start of the book, I was ready to give it 3.5 stars, but it quickly went up to 4 stars. At the end I might have given 4.5 stars, but I wanted to take the entire book in account for my rating and settled on 4.25, as I feel like it does deserve higher than 4.
    • 5/5
      This book is on the CBC list of 100 True Stories that Make You Proud to Be Canadian. One of the authors, Amanda Lindhout, is a Canadian who was held for 460 days in Somalia beginning in August 2008. She was subjected to starvation, rape, torture while her captors negotiated for ransom money from her family and that of her fellow captive, Nigel Brennan. The Canadian government refused to pay ransom money and their negotiators advised Lindhout's family not to pay any either. Eventually Lindhout's and Brennan's families raised enough money to allow a private firm to negotiate their release. In part, Amanda survived by going to her "house in the sky" in her mind whenever she was raped or tortured. Amazingly, Lindhout has started a charity that gives aid to Somalis both inside Somalia and in other countries. She has also stated that she has forgiven the people who took her captive and abused her. She may finally get to face one of them in court. The man she knew as Adam, who was the chief negotiator, was arrested when he came to Canada and his trial should occur shortly. This is one of those books that make you ask yourself "What would I do in these circumstances?" I'm pretty sure I would not have lasted being captive for any length of time and, if I did last, I'm pretty sure I would be mentally traumatized for the rest of my life. Lindhout has had treatment for Post-traumatic Stress but in the interviews I have seen of her she seems to be centered and focused on bringing something good out of this horrific experience.
    • 4/5
      Lindhout became a lover of traveling the world as a backpacker starting in safe countries such as Venezuela, Costa Rica, Panama, and Honduras. As her positive experiences led her to become more confident and daring, she moved on to India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and then as it was so close, Afghanistan.It was in Afghanistan and Iraq that she became a photojournalist which led her to ignore all warnings about the dangers of Somalia, her next stop. Only there three days when she and her friend Nigel Brennan were stopped by armed men on the side of the road and held for the 460 days as captives. What followed for her was a period of mental and physical torture including multiple incidents of rape, starvation and threats of marriage to one of the men holding her which would have guaranteed her vanishing from sight. Nigel was also abused but less severely apparently because he was a man.The title refers to the imaginary house Amanda built in her mind to which she fled while she was being tortured. A powerful book which again demonstrates the evil man will do to another human to gain power of financial reward.
    • 4/5
      This was an incredibly thought provoking book. Next I plan to read her friend Nigel's account of the same situation. Many readers seem to feel no sympathy for Amanda because of her naivete that landed her in such a terrible situation. I get her though. We all have faults and it isn't always easy or possible to change them. I, too, can tend to be lacking in common sense and the need for self-preservation. The part of the book that moved me most was actually thinking about it from her mother's point of view. I am trying to use that to be wiser about my own choices by asking myself how I would feel if one of my kids did ----
    • 5/5
      The memoir of a young Canadian woman abducted in war-ravaged Somalia and held captive for 460 days, primarily in isolation, while being repeatedly tortured and abused. An incredibly potent account of resourcefulness, inner strength, and the power of hope.
    • 4/5
      A House in the Sky is Amanda Lindhout’s personal account of being held hostage in Somalia for 15 months under brutal conditions. I went into this memoir well aware of the criticism of Lindhout and her motivation for traveling to war-torn Somalia despite warnings, and it certainly influenced my impression of her. Rather than add my voice to the backlash though, I have decided to use her experiences as an impetus to learn more about Islam and about conflicts in Africa and the Middle East, and to better understand what life is like for people, especially women, living under these regimes.
    • 4/5
      A House in the Sky is the ghost-written account of Canadian Amanda Lindhout’s 450 days in captivity in Somalia in 2008-09. Possessed by a wanderlust which began in childhood, 24-year-old Lindhout quits her job as a cocktail waitress in Calgary to become a war correspondent. Problem: she has no experience, no contacts, and no education to quality her as a journalist. Thus she’ll need a breakthrough which is uber-impressive in order to make her name. Emboldened by vacations through South America, Southeast Asia, and India – she misses the point that these are not really the same as living in a war zone – she decides to travel to Pakistan, and then Afghanistan, and then Iraq. No surprise that in professional journalistic circles, she is desperately ill equipped and desperately out of place. Still, her arrogance (at this point, I am well past naivité) prompts her to make the ill-fated, foolish decision to venture into Somalia, a mess of “raging war, an impending famine, religious extremists.” (Ch 12) Lindhout is “glad for the lack of competition” there, which she figures will allow her “to do stories that mattered, that moved people—stories that would sell to the big networks. Then I’d move on to even bigger things.” (Ch 12) Incredulously, for reasons which wholly escaped me, ex-boyfriend Australian photographer Nigel Brennan agrees to join Lindhout.Four days into her “work” in Somalia, Lindhout, and Brennan along with her, are kidnapped and held for ransom. She is brutalized in every way imaginable over the next fifteen months: starved, beaten, tortured, and raped. Having no possible way to raise the exorbitant ransom demand, her family is also terrorized –harangued and threatened almost daily by Lindhout’s Islam captors to fund their terrorist operations with Western affluence. Naturally, countless public resources are also spent by the Canadian government seeking to free her. Eventually, a deal is brokered, and both Lindhout and Brennan will live to tell their stories. The novel was an interesting experience for me: first, it was admittedly a page turner; I just did not want to put it down. And undoubtedly, Lindhout’s determination to survive in the face of grave danger is astonishing. That said, the more I read, the less I able I was to excuse her absolute arrogant stupidity as youthful exuberance. Did she deserve what she was forced to endure in Somalia? Of course not! But I don’t think the consequences of her actions were terribly surprising. If it was a name for herself she was after, she certainly found it – at one hell of a price.
    • 5/5
      Another book I might not have picked up, except that my book club was reading it. I found it depressing to learn that people can be as mean to others in their power as they are shown here. It can be claimed that Amanda would not have had these terrible things happen to her if she had stayed out of Somalia and not behaved as a naive or entitled girl. Since this is not a claim that would be made if Amanda had been a Andy, I discount it. The desire to travel, to find a place that we feel at home in, to see what is on the other side of the mountain is deep in our consciousness. She was doing what she needed to do to be true to herself.
    • 4/5
      A memoir of being held captive for ransom by jihad extremists in Somalia. A young canadian woman Amanda and her travel companion Nigel from Australia take a daring trip to Somali as freelance journalists and photographers and get kidnapped and held for ransom. The ordeal that lasts over 460 days is explicit and heart wrenching. An detailed account of what Amanda endured and experienced at the hands of the armed young muslim men and the total disrespect for her as a woman shed light on the culture that is beyond a westerner's imagination. Wishing you Amanda & Nigel "Many Good Things"
    • 4/5
      I read several reviews earlier today chastising Lindhout for traveling to Somalia and being surprised when she is kidnapped. These reviewers found her naive, arrogant, and uneducated. Other reviewers agreed that Lindhout was naive, but that was the point- she wanted to share her story of naivety and how she has grown since. I'm only through Chapter 4, but I will say, thus far, I am agreeing with the latter reviewers. Chapters 3 and 4 were clearly written as foreshadowing- clear indication that she was naive, and her conscience was trying to warn her, but her young, curious heart was craving more of the new world around her.
    • 4/5
      An account of a young woman's struggle to survive while held captive in Somalia. As I have never traveled to the regions of the world that she did, I found her story to be facinating. In addition, provides a look into a Muslim world from the angle-female point of view. While I tried to keep an open mind, it was difficult to understand the behavior of her captors. I would highly recommend if you like true stories and can handle a somewhat difficult read.
    • 4/5
      This books made me feel many different things. Horror, disbelief, the power of wanting to live and the strenght of some people towards adversity. I was horrified reading of the torture inflicked on the hostages during their incarceration. Whenever I read these type of books, I feel like the luckiest person in the world living in Canada.
    • 4/5
      A harrowing read that tells the compelling story of Amanda Lindhout, a young woman freelance photojournalist traveling some of the most hostile places on earth, like Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and Somalia, where she was kidnapped and held hostage for over 400 days. The memoir traces her hardscrabble childhood of poverty,chaos, and domestic violence; her escaping the poverty by becoming a well paid cocktail waitress at night clubs, which funded her increasingly adventurous world wide journeys as a backpacker. She eventually manages to cobble together a freelance career of sorts, falls for a married man, and together travel to war torn Somalia, On her fourth day in Somalia, the pair get kidnapped and the rest of the book describes their efforts to stay alive. The memoir grows increasingly grim and difficult to read as Amanda pretends to convert to Islam, is moved from terrible houses to worse houses, and eventually falls prey to abuse, beating, rape, torture, and betrayal from her traveling companion.Amanda survives through sheer grit and mental strength, and escaping in an imagina house in the sky. That she doesn't lose faith in humanity and even finds herself feeling compassion for her tormentors is truly remarkable.
    • 5/5
      Amazing true story, beautiful, horrific, courageous. I couldn't stop reading.This book will take your breath away. From an abusive household in Alberta, Canada as a child whose escape is found in old National Geographic books, Amanda has no idea how much she is learning about escaping into her mind or how much she will need this in her future. Her future as she sees it is travelling to the many countries she reads about. After she and her brothers move with her mother to a safe house, she starts planning for a future to include this travel.Amanda Lindhout's memoir is a masterpiece of how the mind can change itself whenever it needs to, how it compensates, over-rides, and deals with the worst kinds of trauma to keep lifeblood flowing. But not to get ahead of myself, first Amanda finds a way to earn enough money to finance a trip to South America. The first of many trips interspersed with coming home to work for more money. As a cocktail waitress, she has advanced through the ranks until she is in a place to earn high tips, enough to make a trip every year. This takes her to countries in South and Central America, Asia and Africa as what she considers a beginning to many more amazing places. The writing in this stage of the book is absolutely wonderful, bringing to mind all those National Geographics, while she backpacks her way through these countries, we feel we are seeing what she is seeing, experiencing what she is experiencing. She makes us feel what she is feeling, and it is consistently beautiful. Some countries like India and Pakistan she visits more than once, but then she begins to expand her horizons: Afghanistan, Iraq, Bangladesh, Ethiopia....Between trips she turns again to cocktail waitressing, but her need to be somewhere exotic takes over every year, and each trip she gets deeper into dangerous territory. She travels fr a time with a freelance photographer, decides that next trip she wants to show the world to everyone. She becomes a freelance photojournalist, occasionally selling photos and stories to various papers and magazines. She has teamed up with Nigel, another freelance photographer, an Australian. When she decides to head into war zones, she asks him to join her and he semi-reluctantly does. Here the book shifts dramatically. It is 2008 and she has chosen to go into Somalia.Once in Somalia, known as the 'most dangerous country in the world,' everything changes. Although at first she and Nigel are enjoying the relatively 'safe' city of Mogadishu, on the fourth day she, Nigel, and their drivers are abducted by extremist Muslims. Assuming that all North Americans are rich, their abductors set an impossibly high ransom, which their parents are unable to even come near to paying and their respective governments have no intention of paying. Thus begins their ordeal which will last for 463 days of captivity and isolation. Kept in one room at first, they pretend they want to convert to Islam as a way of staying alive. They are visited sometimes by their captors wanting to learn English, and to teach them the Koran.As time goes by and their captors' demands are not met, they are moved from house to house, always in the dark. Nigel and Amanda escape from one of the houses and are recaptured. From that point on, the two are completely separated and are shackled; Amanda gets the brunt of punishment as a woman, which includes rape, beatings and torture but she is able to separate herself in her mind from what is happening, a product of her childhood days. She is kept in complete darkness, later she is also bound and gagged. As fever takes over, beatings and rape continue almost daily but she is now living in her mind and guided by a calmness brought on by what seems to be a voice and is able to use different approaches to this separation of her being and her mind. Her mind's eye sees a beautiful house, one that she constructs room by room, floor by floor, until it reaches the sky. A focus for survival.When finally rescued, neither Amanda nor Nigel are able to comprehend the fact that they are free. They can't comprehend that the food they are given is meant for them, they are fearful it will be taken away or they will be beaten. Both are suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and it will take a long time to learn how to handle that. It may never be gone. But Amanda has built that inner strength from her ordeals and although the fear is always with her, she becomes forgiving of many things, including forgiving herself. In the Epilogue, we learn that she founds a non-profit organization, the Global Enrichment Foundation to help provide and support education in Somalia, and partnering with other groups, funding scholarships to thirty-six Somalian women attending university, among other projects. This book is gut-wrenchingly real, powerful, and well-written; although the memories and fears of the atrocities are obviously very much a part of her, she has chosen to move on with her life in a positive way.
    • 4/5
      Gripping memoir of the kidnapping of photojournalist Amanda Lindhout by Islamic extremists in Somalia.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this book. I felt it was well written and very compelling. I can't even imagine how she survived for that many months in those atrocious conditions. She must be an incredible person as a result of this experience.Her story is horrible and heart wrenching, however it was difficult at times to feel badly for her given that she was given advice that she ignored and put herself and her traveling companions in this situation. I hope that by sharing the extremely awful details of her captivity that people will heed travel advisory restrictions and not make the make same mistakes by going into dangerous areas. Traveling is a beautiful experience but doing it with reckless abandonment is foolish.
    • 5/5
      I am still haunted by this book. So beautifully written; so horrifying what she went through; so incredible that she was able to write this at all. I hope it was therapeutic - it seemed so.But the horror of it will never leave me.