Beyond the Book: Background information when reading Pretty Birds

Beyond the Book

This article relates to Pretty Birds

Scott Simon is the host of National Public Radio's Weekend Edition with Scott Simon. He has covered ten wars (including the Sarajevo siege) from El Salvador to Iraq, and has won every major award in broadcasting, including the Peabody and the Emmy. His memoir, Home and Away, rose to the top of the Los Angeles Times nonfiction bestseller list. His second book, Jackie Robinson and the Integration of Baseball, was named Barnes & Noble's Sports Book of the Year.  He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and daughter.

The Balkans is the historic and geographic name used to describe South Eastern Europe. The region takes its name from the Balkan mountains which run through the centre of the area. It's a region of mountains and sea, and much beauty. The 'Former Yugoslavian' countries are on the Western side, mostly bordering the Adriatic Sea, facing Italy (which is as close as 40 miles away at some points).

If your memory of the War in the "Former Yugoslavia" (1992-95) is a little rusty or, let's face it, you never did quite get the hang of which country was which and where they all were, these two websites might help. A brief history of the Balkans (from a Bosnian point of view), and an excellent sequence of maps produced by the BBC showing the Balkan region at different stages from 1900 to 2003, which vividly illustrate a very turbulent century for the region.

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This "beyond the book article" relates to Pretty Birds. It originally ran in July 2005 and has been updated for the May 2006 paperback edition. Go to magazine.