Bookshelf

  • Islam: A Short History (Universal History S.)
    Islam: A Short History (Universal History S.)
    Author: Karen Armstrong
    Rating: 5

    Thorough. I haven’t found a better overview or introduction.

    Iain

  • Kim (Penguin Modern Classics)
    Kim (Penguin Modern Classics)
    Author: Rudyard Kipling
    Rating: 5

  • McCarthy\'s Bar: A Journey of Discovery in Ireland (A Lir Book)
    McCarthy’s Bar: A Journey of Discovery in Ireland (A Lir Book)
    Author: Pete McCarthy
    Rating: 5

  • Angela's Ashes
    Angela’s Ashes
    Author: Frank McCourt
    Rating: 5

  • The Art of Travel
    The Art of Travel
    Author: Alain De Botton
    Rating: 5

  • Birdsong
    Birdsong
    Author: Sebastian Faulks
    Rating: 5

    One of the finest books I’ve read. Faulks’s soldiers are vividly, and depressingly, dehumanised by the “war to end all wars.”

    Iain

  • A Moveable Feast
    A Moveable Feast
    Author: Ernest Hemingway
    Rating: 5
    In my opinion, Hemingway’s finest novel. Everything the man wrote was full of autobiography, it’s unsurprising that an autobiography proper might be his best.

    Iain

  • The Wind That Shakes The Barley [2006]
    The Wind That Shakes The Barley [2006]
    Director: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
    Rating: 5

  • Syriana [2005]
    Syriana [2005]
    Director: Warner Home Video
    Rating: 5

  • Freedom at Midnight
    Freedom at Midnight
    Author: Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins
    Rating: 5

    Journalism at its best. Lapierre and Collins so thoroughly take you from soon after the end of WWII to the assassination of Ghandi that the book outgrows its short timespan, and becomes reasonable introduction to India.

    Iain

  • Skinny Legs and All
    Skinny Legs and All
    Author: Tom Robbins
    Rating: 5

    Endlessly inventive. Renewed, for a time, my ever-flagging faith in writing.

    Iain

  • An Area of Darkness
    An Area of Darkness
    Author: V.S. Naipaul
    Rating: 5

    Glum, vague and often justifiably pessimistic. Erudite, poetic and and happily intimate. You’ll need to know something of India beforehand, and have a taste for the semicolon.

    Iain

  • The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (Classics)
    The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (Classics)
    Author: Victor Hugo
    Rating: 5

    A vivid portrait of medieval Paris, treatise on architecture, and celebration of the printing press. Not a Disney movie!

    Iain

  • The River at the Centre of the World
    The River at the Centre of the World
    Author: Simon Winchester
    Rating: 4

  • Europe (Lonely Planet Shoestring Guides S.)
    Europe (Lonely Planet Shoestring Guides S.)
    Author: Sarah Andrews
    Rating: 4

  • India: A Wounded Civilisation
    India: A Wounded Civilisation
    Author: V.S. Naipaul
    Rating: 4

  • Madame Bovary (Penguin Classics)
    Madame Bovary (Penguin Classics)
    Author: Gustave Flaubert
    Rating: 4

  • Great Britain (Lonely Planet Country Guide S.)
    Great Britain (Lonely Planet Country Guide S.)
    Author: Andy Symington
    Rating: 4

  • The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (Classics S.)
    The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (Classics S.)
    Author: Victor Hugo
    Rating: 4

  • Falling for Icarus: A Journey Among the Cretans
    Falling for Icarus: A Journey Among the Cretans
    Author: Rory MacLean
    Rating: 4

  • Take Me with You: A round-the-world journey to invite a stranger home
    Take Me with You: A round-the-world journey to invite a stranger home
    Author: Brad Newsham
    Rating: 4

  • Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises (Arrow Classic S.)
    Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises (Arrow Classic S.)
    Author: Ernest Hemingway
    Rating: 4

  • The City of Falling Angels
    The City of Falling Angels
    Author: John Berendt
    Rating: 4

  • What Went Wrong?: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East
    What Went Wrong?: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East
    Author: Bernard W. Lewis
    Rating: 4

    Contentious, apparently, because it was written by a Jew. Hit and miss, with interesting tidbits: like a 17th century English traveller repeatedly woken too early by his escort, because the Ottomans did not, until much later, use clocks.

    Iain

  • Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: v. 1 (Penguin Classics)
    Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: v. 1 (Penguin Classics)
    Author: Edward Gibbon
    Rating: 4

  • Midnight\'s Children
    Midnight’s Children
    Author: Salman Rushdie
    Rating: 4
    Rushdie wrote this before The Satanic Verses, the fatwah, and a life in hiding. It’s a fun, if confusing, history of post-independence India.

    Iain

  • An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth
    An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth
    Author: M.K. Gandhi
    Rating: 4

    Gandhi’s reflections are simply written and sometimes bizarre. He remembers the Eiffel Tower being blamed on tobacco, for example. Gandhi works hard to be honest about the man before the Mahatma, and manages, weaving an interesting first hand history.

    Iain

  • Greek Islands (Lonely Planet Regional Guides)
    Greek Islands (Lonely Planet Regional Guides)
    Author: Victoria Kyriakopoulos
    Rating: 4

    Island hopping in detail, with a comprehensive guide to Athens.

    Iain

  • Down and Out in Paris and London (Penguin Modern Classics)
    Down and Out in Paris and London (Penguin Modern Classics)
    Author: George Orwell
    Rating: 3

  • A Year in the Merde
    A Year in the Merde
    Author: Stephen Clarke
    Rating: 3

  • Kingdom of Heaven [2005]
    Kingdom of Heaven [2005]
    Director: Ridley Scott
    Rating: 3

  • Andalus: Unlocking the Secrets of Moorish Spain
    Andalus: Unlocking the Secrets of Moorish Spain
    Author: Jason Webster
    Rating: 2
    Average. Webster does a reasonable job of tracing Spain’s Moorish roots, which he considers deliberately ignored.

    Iain

  • Nepal (Lonely Planet Country Guide)
    Nepal (Lonely Planet Country Guide)
    Author: Joe Bindloss
    Rating: 2

    The weakest LP I’ve used. Use plain medicinal iodine drop to purify water when trekking, the pills are expensive. Lodges (off-season 2007) should cost NRp. 50 per room, and won’t charge for a shower. They will charge about NRp. 300 for dalbut. And Nepal’s busses are not THAT bad - crash spotting over the course of a week is hardly scientific.

    Iain

  • Ireland in the 20th Century
    Ireland in the 20th Century
    Author: Tim Pat Coogan
    Rating: 0

    Too much information! At least for our short visit. The tome went home with my mother and Willie, who had bag space I envied.

    Iain

  • The End of an Era: Recollections of an Unfashionable Man
    The End of an Era: Recollections of an Unfashionable Man
    Author: David Stuart Fyfe
    Rating: 0
    Short stories - some autobiographical, some not so autobiographical - written by my grandfather. I haven’t rated the book (I’m biased), which is sad, because it means that it sits at the bottom of this page.

    Iain

  • India (Lonely Planet Country Guide)
    India (Lonely Planet Country Guide)
    Author: Simon Richmond
    Rating: 0

  • Bhagavad-gita (Penguin Classics)
    Bhagavad-gita (Penguin Classics)
    Author:
    Rating: 0

    The most important of Hindu texts. Difficult to rate, more difficult to read.

    Iain