January 2006 Archives

Another of my London Heathrow haul, The Shadow of the Wind was a punt, based on the blurb and deciding not to let myself be snobby about a Richard and Judy book club recommendation.

It proved to be a good choice; one that lasted me all the way home.

A strong story, with characters I felt for and a plot that taught me much about the difficulties of living in Barcelona in the years following the Spanish Civil War. Even though I guessed the solution to the mystery early on, my certainty wavered as I read on and the gaps in my understanding opened and closed, and opened again.

But it is not just a novel in modern historical setting. There is comedy, there is horror, there is love - unrequited and fulfilled. And it is most definitely not a 'Spanish Da Vinci Code'.

Buy it: Amazon link

Another great book about another culture and another part of the world. Chris Bird's book tells the twin tales of his family's experiences of living in the Caucasus and his experiences reporting on current affairs in the region over the course of 3 (4?) years at the end of the 20th century - notably the various wars in and about Chechnya. The personal descriptions are supplemented by Chris Bird's own account and analysis of the region's history, and the complexities of Chechnya, the Caucasus, and indeed many of the republics that formed the USSR, Russia in particular.

I'd love to know how Chris Bird is getting on with his career change - the book says that he was studying medicine in London at the time of publication.

Buy it: Amazon link

I thoroughly enjoyed this account of the various Christian communities that live(d) in the Middle East. It's fascinating to learn how many of the regions we think of as muslim have older Christian cultures (plural), and for how long these societies have lived together in the Middle East. William Dalrymple does not shy away from looking at why many of the Christian cultures are slowly but surely disappearing, but neither does he lay blame in an indiscriminate fashion as he travels around the countries that form the eastern and southern borders of the Mediterranean Sea.

A bit strange reading it on a small island in the middle of the South Atlantic.

Buy it: Amazon link