In Madrid, Ahmed Rashid was good enough to sneak away from the podium at the world summit on terrorism and treat me to a crash course in both the intricacies of Pakistan’s political system and the relation between the rise of the madrassas and extremism. Conrad Anker, Doug Chabot, Scott Darsney, Jon Krakauer, Jenny Lowe, Dan Mazur, and Charlie Shimanski each gave me meaningful glimpses into the high-wire world of mountaineering. Jim “Mapman” McMahon deserves kudos for both the professional job he did drawing the book’s maps and for his offer to mud wrestle anyone at Fox News who doesn’t like Three Cups of Tea’s message.
I owe my old friend Lee Kravitz at Parade a debt for the day he said, “There’s someone I think you should meet,” and for his wise counsel as the book came together. I’d like to thank him also for having the good sense to marry Elizabeth Kaplan, who gracefully shepherded this book through the publishing process and educated a rube about the book business, all while simultaneously eating, walking, talking on her cell phone, and caring for her children. I’m grateful to Ray Roberts at Viking both for his erudition and his courtly attitude toward all the minor catastrophes involved in preparing this book for publication.
I need to thank the Murphy-Goode Winery, for lubricating so much of the interview process. Thanks also to Victor Ichioka at Mountain Hardwear for outfitting our trips to the Northern Areas. And I’m grateful to the coffee shops of Portland, Oregon, some of the finest on earth, for allowing an overcaffeinated writer to mutter to himself throughout so many long afternoons.
Finally, I want to thank Dawn, for far too many things to list here, but especially for the look on her lovely firelit face that evening in the Salmon-Huckleberry Wilderness when I read her the first few completed chapters.
—David Oliver Relin
If Three Cups of Tea inspires you to do more, here are suggestions for how to help:
Visit the www.threecupsoftea.com Web site for more info, book reviews, events, and ideas. If you purchase books online, go through this Web site and 7 percent of all your book purchases will go toward a girls’ education scholarship fund in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Suggest Three Cups of Tea to a friend, colleague, book club, women’s group, church, civic group, synagogue, mosque, university or high school class, or a group interested in education, literacy, adventure, cross-cultural issues, Islam, or Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Check if Three Cups of Tea is in your local library. If not, either donate a book or suggest to the library to add Three Cups of Tea to their collection. Ask your friends or family in other states to do this also. As of late 2006, Three Cups of Tea was only in 1,100 out of 8,400 U.S. public libraries. In several libraries, there is a backlog of more than ten to twenty people to read this book.
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Write a Three Cups of Tea book review for Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Borders, or a blog. Your candid comments will help the buzz with this (or any) book.
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Pennies for Peace, www.penniesforpeace.org, is designed for schoolchildren. Get your local school involved to make a difference, one penny, one pencil at a time. Since 1994, more than eight million pennies have been raised through Pennies for Peace!
If you want to support our efforts to promote education and literacy, especially for girls, you can make a tax-deductible contribution to our nonprofit organization, Central Asia Institute, P.O. Box 7209, Bozeman, MT 59771, phone 406-585-7841, www.ikat.org. It costs us $1.00 per month for one child’s education in Pakistan or Afghanistan, a penny to buy a pencil, and a teacher’s salary averages $1.00 per day.
Please direct media or Three Cups of Tea inquiries to info@ threecupsoftea.com or call 406-585-7841.
For more information contact: Central Asia Institute
P.O. Box 7209
Bozeman, MT 59771
406-585-7841
www.ikat.org
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First published in the United States of America by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 2006
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Copyright © Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, 2006
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ISBN: 978-0-14-191794-8
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