-- the book "Florence of Arabia" inspired by Oklahoma's Fern Holland

I had the pleasure of working with four college interns this past year. One of them, Erin Campbell, graduated from Southern Nazarene University last month and is now back home in Kansas City. She sent me a newsy email today and I wanted to share with you one paragraph from that email. Enjoy.

I've had some time to do some reading, and my mom suggested a novel called "Florence of Arabia" by Christopher Buckley. It's political satire meets spy novel meets feminism meets the Middle East. It's hilarious and entertaining. I got to the end and read the acknowledgments and discovered the story was inspired by a real woman named Fern Holland from Oklahoma! I'm betting you've heard of her, but I googled her and was amazed by what I found! Here's an article from the NY Times Magazine a few years ago about her: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/19/magazine/19WOMENL.html . It only made the book better to discover it was based on a true story about an Oklahoman Woman. I'd highly recommend it!