Posts Tagged ‘Don’t Miss’
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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 Map and the Territory – Michel Houellebecq
The future of post-industrial Europe, the art market and what it says about our cultural situation, the loneliness of modern European societies, and much more.
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The Nigger of the Narcissus – Joseph Conrad
One of the best and most terrifying descriptions of a storm at sea. Incredible metaphors and mastery of the use of language.
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Number Zero – Umberto Eco
Eco's most recent novel tackles on a conspiracy to keep Mussolini alive and what it leads to; the real way in which news is fabricated and journalistic influence used. Very entertaining.
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Baltasar and Blimunda – José Saramago
This is a most beautiful novel, a great love story developed against the background of the construction of the wonderful palace-monastery of Mafra.
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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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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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Ferdydurke – Witold Gombrowicz
A novel about the debilitating influence of convention could hardly be a conventional novel. It is idiosyncratic to the point of an obsession. It novel illustrates that behind the scrambled surface a profound artistic and philo...
