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hawkwing_lbBooks 2011: 13-14
13. Patricia C. Wrede, A Matter of Magic.
This volume collects Mairelon the Magician and The Magician's Ward. I can't remember if I've ever read any Wrede before - I think not - and I'm sorry to have missed her work for so long. These are quite brilliant books, set in a Regency England with wizards, and the main character, Kim, is a street thief from London who becomes involved with one. Oddly gentle books, but very enjoyable.
non-fiction
14. Tim Mackintosh-Smith, Travels with a Tangerine: A Journey in the Footnotes of Ibn Battutah.
Ibn Battutah, or IB, as Mackintosh-Smith refers to him, is a medieval Arabic traveller from Tangiers who voyaged through the Islamic world as far as China, and from thence returned. Mackintosh-Smith, an Englishman who has apparently lived half his life in Yemen, set out to retrace his steps.
M-S writes with a wry, erudite humour and a novelist's eye for telling detail. He clearly understands the world he is travelling through, even as his directed asides make it clear that he remains an outsider. Morocco, Cairo, Upper Egypt come alive through his eyes: he recounts hitching a lift with the Omani coastal patrol down past where roads run out; encounters with imams and Egyptian women at saints' shrines in the Eastern Desert; a bookseller in Damascus with whom he speaks of absolutely vital works of history; his visit to the Crimea and Istanbul. His asides about defecation (at one point he exclaims How unhappy are the squatting nations! speaking of reading on the toilet, and I will confess, O Reader, I recognised myself in his statement) are also memorably amusing.
This is only the first of three volumes about his journey in IB's footnotes. I am looking forward to getting my hands on volume two, The Hall of the Thousand Columns.
Excellent book. Brilliant.
13. Patricia C. Wrede, A Matter of Magic.
This volume collects Mairelon the Magician and The Magician's Ward. I can't remember if I've ever read any Wrede before - I think not - and I'm sorry to have missed her work for so long. These are quite brilliant books, set in a Regency England with wizards, and the main character, Kim, is a street thief from London who becomes involved with one. Oddly gentle books, but very enjoyable.
non-fiction
14. Tim Mackintosh-Smith, Travels with a Tangerine: A Journey in the Footnotes of Ibn Battutah.
Ibn Battutah, or IB, as Mackintosh-Smith refers to him, is a medieval Arabic traveller from Tangiers who voyaged through the Islamic world as far as China, and from thence returned. Mackintosh-Smith, an Englishman who has apparently lived half his life in Yemen, set out to retrace his steps.
M-S writes with a wry, erudite humour and a novelist's eye for telling detail. He clearly understands the world he is travelling through, even as his directed asides make it clear that he remains an outsider. Morocco, Cairo, Upper Egypt come alive through his eyes: he recounts hitching a lift with the Omani coastal patrol down past where roads run out; encounters with imams and Egyptian women at saints' shrines in the Eastern Desert; a bookseller in Damascus with whom he speaks of absolutely vital works of history; his visit to the Crimea and Istanbul. His asides about defecation (at one point he exclaims How unhappy are the squatting nations! speaking of reading on the toilet, and I will confess, O Reader, I recognised myself in his statement) are also memorably amusing.
This is only the first of three volumes about his journey in IB's footnotes. I am looking forward to getting my hands on volume two, The Hall of the Thousand Columns.
Excellent book. Brilliant.
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Date: 2011-01-29 12:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-29 12:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-29 01:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-29 03:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-29 01:12 pm (UTC)The other book sounds like a great introduction to Ibn Battutah (I'd sort of vaguely heard of him, but no further) - definitely will check that one out at some point.
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Date: 2011-01-29 03:15 pm (UTC)