Book Review: Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

Reading a highly-acclaimed book after hearing of its merits over many months can be a disadvantage to the reading experience. Rather than discovering a book on my own, I'm first exposed to the whirlwind of media, the opinions of reviewers, journalists, various daytime talk-show hosts fluttering with praise:

Have you heard of Three Cups of Tea?
You must read Three Cups of Tea!

By the time the book is reprinted in paperback and has been on the New York Times' Bestseller list for several weeks, I've heard from my co-workers, friends, family, and members of my book club:

I just read Three Cups of Tea.
Three Cups of Tea is so good!
Oh, you've got to read Three Cups of Tea.

By the time I see the book on the library shelf, finally settled into its permanent space after the first clamor and popularity, I expect a lot. I pick it up. I put it back down. Expectations are damaging to the reading experience. I remember reading The DaVinci Code a year after its release, thinking...this is it?

Finally, I read Three Cups of Tea. I can only resist a book for so long.

One underdog succeeding against all odds? Check. Open-minded perspectives on foreign cultures? Check. Human compassion within a war-torn, violent country? The hospitality and friendships made over tea ceremonies referred to in the title? A realization of my shameful ignorance of the people and political issues of the Middle-East? Check, check, and check. It was all there. Every praise was worthy.

The humanity was there, but more importantly was the human-Greg Mortenson-imperfect, flawed even, a person who chose time and again to forego convenience and comfort to help others, strangers, in need. Before he began such extraordinary efforts, Mortenson had already lived an extraordinary life. He grew up in Africa with his missionary parents, served two years in the army, earned two degrees with honors-one in nursing, one in chemistry-studied neurology with hopes of finding a cure for his sister's seizures, and in his spare time, pursued a mountain-climbing obsession that would eventually lead him to attempt a summit to K2, fail, and in his weakened state, stumble upon a village of people who took him in, cared for him, and inspired his life's work from that point on.

As told expertly by author David Oliver Relin, the account of a this major humanitarian effort, resulting in the formation of the Central Asia Institute and the building of more than fifty schools, becomes the personal story of one man who made one small choice to help. Mortenson started out with no significant advantages, no extended knowledge of this need for education in Pakistan. He quite literally stumbled upon this village and promised, spontaneously, to build them a school. And then...he did it.

It wasn't easy. He made countless mistakes. But one small action, followed by another, and then another, and a lifetime later, Mortenson had built over fifty schools and helped countless people in Pakistan and Afghanistan. This was the perspective that, having already expected the grand lessons of charity and humanity throughout the book, I was able to discover while reading: That Greg Mortenson did not endeavor to make such a large-scale humanitarian effort. The type of small action that most of us never bother to take, Greg Mortenson took not only once, but over and over again.