April 2004 Archives

An inspired birthday present from Karen, read in a flash. I'd been put off from buying it by the later reivews, which emphasised the misogynic aspects of Afghan society. I'm glad Karen got it for me - it's a good read and provides insights into history, society, culture and personal relationships, told through tales from a family's life over the past 20 odd years. It's an uncomfortable read at times - but then the Khan clan live in a very different world from mine.

Buy it: Amazon link

A hardback Christmas treat for myself, but one that I've delayed to indulge in due to other reads, and it being hardback and so not easy commuter fayre. However, return flights to Belgrade plus the Belgrade-Novi Sad bus journey provided me with ample opportunity to get another dose of biography, history and politics Simpson-style.

Twenty plus years of reporting on foreign affairs, and Iraq in particular - JS reported on the Iran-Iraq war, on the chemical attack at Halabjah, on the first Gulf / Kuwait War in 1991 as well as the second - synthesized into a comprehensive account and analysis of Saddam, his regieme and his relationship with the West. Interspersed with the biography we get chunks of autobiography from JS, showing the all too human side of the roving reporter.

Fascintating and informative - buy it: Amazon link

20th century sleuthing, Italian style, and an enjoyable pot luck read from the Gyford family caravan to tide an ill-me through the Easter Bank holiday weekend.

It feels as though the novel is written with a solid grounding in Italy's unusual crime-fighting scene, but I was very conscious that many of the asides left me high and dry, due to my limited knowledge of Italian history and politics, ancient and modern. Still, this is an easy way to improve that!!

Buy it: Amazon link

I thoroughly enjoyed this historical novel meets SciFi/Fantasy - my two favourite fictional genres! A good borrow from Phil.

As the blurb on the back said, "Imagine a world without Europe...."

.... or more accurately a world where the population of Europe is almost entirely wiped out by the Plague in the Middle Ages. Focussing key people, eras and events, Kim Stanley Robinson describes the next 600 or so years (it's hard to keep track of where "we"'d got to in his timeline) and conducts a huge thought experiment over the course of 800 pages.

It would have been useful to know that "Extra continuity is given by a touch of fantasy as the Buddhist wheel of reincarnation brings back the same characters (coded by initials) again and again with varied roles, relations and sexes."

Buy it: Amazon link