Author Archive
Book
An Ottoman Traveller, Evliya Çelebi – Dankoff & Kim, trans. ed.
Undoubtedly, the most amazing parts of Dankoff and Kim’s volume are Çelebi’s accounts of the late medieval Europe. It is written with an incredible degree of confidence, bordering on arrogance, of a devout Muslim.
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Books on the Making of the Modern Middle East – Rogan, McMeekin, Hardy, Wheatcroft
We are now witnessing a harvest of new history books on the making of the modern Middle East. Four are chosen for a critical review below. They are works by experts, well-researched, and highly readable and infinitely more obje...
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Dombey and Son – Charles Dickens
His boy had faded into dust, his proud wife had sunk into a polluted creature, his flatterer and friend had been transformed into the worst of villains, his riches had melted away, the very walls that sheltered him looked on hi...
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The Cornish Trilogy – Robertson Davies
One of the most beloved works of Robertson Davies, this set contains three books full of wittiness and intrigue.
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The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr – E.T.A. Hoffmann
Tomcat Murr is a loveable, self-taught animal who has written his own autobiography. But a printer's error causes his story to be accidentally mixed and spliced with a book about the composer Johannes Kreisler. As the two versi...
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The Baphomet – Pierre Klossowski
God isn't taking in any more souls, so the spirits are piling up on earth. Theresa is one of the blessed, but she has been granted a dispensation to hang around looking after the soul of her former confessor.
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Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
The characters, the adventures and Huck's voice are a triumph of literature.
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Under Fire – Henri Barbusse
Based on the author’s experiences fighting on the Western Front, this was one of the first WWI novels to be published (1916). Although it is fiction, the realities of war, told by a first-hand witness, are real.
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419 – Will Ferguson
“But don’t be fooled: 419 is a business. It brings in hundreds of millions of dollars a year. It’s bigger than Nigeria; it’s as old as sin. As old as desire. These 419ers, they prey on people’s dreams.”
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The Pocket Mommy – Rachel Eugster
Saying goodbye to Mom at the kindergarten door can be tough. Samuel hates it and wishes he could have a tiny, pocket-sized mommy to carry around with him all day. His mom slips a pretend mommy into his pocket, and when she come...
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