Category: Books

The Valleys of the Assassins (1934): Freya Stark

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★★★★

When planning my trip to Qatar, it was hard to decide on reading material.  If I go abroad I always try to find a book which matches the place I’m going, as far as possible: it’s like a game.  I’ve read The Three Musketeers in Paris and The Leopard beside the pool in Sorrento (Sicily itself is still on the ‘to-do’ list).  For the Middle East, the obvious book was Seven Pillars of Wisdom, which is one of the many books I’ve always meant to read. I bought it; but then began to worry that perhaps it might cause offence; I don’t know how T.E. Lawrence is perceived in the Middle East.

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A Song for Arbonne (1992): Guy Gavriel Kay

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★★★★

This is the sixth book I’ve read by Guy Gavriel Kay and it is once again set in his distinctive parallel world with its single sun and twin moons – white and blue – though the names of the countries and the gods aren’t the same as in his other books.  Like the vast majority of his novels, A Song for Arbonne takes place in a context closely mirroring a historical period from our own world: in this case, Southern France in the age of the troubadours.

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In praise of Dorothy Dunnett

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Dorothy Dunnett

I’d never heard of Dorothy Dunnett until one afternoon when I was in the library, seeking out my next stash of books.  Methodically going through the racks, I stumbled across The Spring of the Ram, the second book in her House of Niccolò series.  Although I don’t like reading series out of order, the first book was nowhere to be found in the library and there was a synopsis at the start of The Spring of the Ram.  I took it home and, very shortly, was absolutely hooked.

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