Written in 1984, I believe The Haj has critical relevance to the current events of the day. I read this recently, at the recommendation of a friend, and it has altered my view the troubles in the Middle East. While it is a work of fiction, it is largely drawn from historical events, and delivers an important perspective into the underpinnings of the conflict in Israel.

Set between the years of 1920’s and 1950’s, the story focuses on the Palestinian Arab family of caught up in the historic events of that land and a majority of it is narrated through the eyes of Ishmael, the youngest son of a muktar, the tribal leader of a small village. The Haj portrays the travails of the Arab family of the muktar, where their village sits on a hill which later turns out to be of critical strategic interest, and is on the route to Jerusalem from the Mediterranean coast.

Critics of the book at the time it was released complained that it was slanted in its treatment of the main characters, in favor of the Israeli characters, despite the fact that the main characters were Arab, and had in my view a sympathetic treatment. Being Jewish and the author of Exodus, that claim leveled against Leon Uris with little surprise. The importance of the book for me, however, was the depiction of historical events that had always been somewhat blurred in the emotionally charged discussions of what actually occurred during this time. Therein lies the value of this book. For me, I learned about the contention and competition between the competing Arabs around Palestine who coveted the land for themselves. And when Egypt, Trans Jordan and Syria decided to invade Israel in 1948 it was just as much to carve out a piece of this land for themselves as it was to drive out the nascent Jewish settlement. And in the bargain, the Palestinians, the ones who could not afford to evacuate, were abandoned to their fates having been told by the invading Arab countries that they should leave, or risk annihilation in the invasion. This is where the refugee camps were born, and where the militant movement that plagues the world today. 

This was an electrifying book for me. Take a history professor, whose ideals and ethics are noble, yet old-fashioned and out-of-date, making him something of an outsider in the Washington political world, make the man a friend of President Franklin Roosevelt, who feels he owes him a political favor, and offer him the job no one else in their right mind wants: the ambassador post in Berlin just as Hitler has taken power. In the Garden of Beasts is Ambassador William E. Dodd’s story. Top that with having a rebellious and flamboyant daughter, Martha, who loves the parties and pomp of the Third Reich, and you have the makings of entertaining fiction, but it’s all a true story, and a page-turner.  

Beginning with his quiet academic life at the University of Chicago, where he is working on completing his life’s work, a history of the American Civil War, Dodd is apparently the last candidate under consideration for the post no one else wants. And when offered it, he dutifully accepts, citing his PhD studies in Leipzig some 40 years before hopefully being a credential that will have some impact on the new German Nazi regime that has taken power, and for which hope still glimmers that Washington diplomacy might be able to be influence or control the brash and often charming Nazis. It’s 1933, and the glimmers of horror are only being experienced in certain quarters, but for those who occupy the privileged halls of the elite international diplomatic community in Berlin, you don’t see it if you don’t want to. A man of modest income, Dodd has pledged to live on his small salary in Berlin, where all his predecessors came from elite and wealthy blue blood families who funded considerable financial support to their advantaged society hermetically sealed off from the lives of everyday Germans. And it is into this world that the history professor, now ambassador, Dodd arrives with his wife and two adult children, a son and daughter.

Separated from her husband and in the process of divorce, Martha Dodd quickly became caught up in the glamour and excitement of Berlin's social scene and had a series of liaisons, likely sexual, including Gestapo head Rudolf Diels and then later Soviet attaché and secret agent Boris Vinogradov. As she proceeds to deny the emerging Nazi horror, actually witnessing some of it in the streets herself, her meanwhile father commits himself to try to lecture the Germans on the proper path of conduct for this emerging power. Populated vivid iconic characters and direct interactions with such historic figures as President Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, Hermann Göring, Joseph Goebbels, SS Generals Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich, Ernst Röhm, Franz von Papen - Vice Chancellor under Hindenburg, and lesser known figures, In the Garden of Beasts is a riveting and informative read. Early reports say that Tom Hanks and Natalie Portman have been cast in the film project which is currently in development. 

What a fascinating read which grew on me the more I entered the worlds the author created. People of the Book is like a detective story, a collection of short stories of the Jewish people’s plight through the centuries, and story of a young woman who labors to find herself as she struggles against the iron will of her judgmental mother an immensely successful surgeon. In her follow-on novel after her Pulitzer Prize winning March, Geraldine Brooks delivers a collection of stories within the framework of another story which binds them all together. Some have compared this to Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code, yet I don’t get that at all, except for the convention of looking into the past to gain some sense of revelation in the present. The themes and genre were distinctly different in my view.

A fictional account of the actual historical Sarajevo Haggadah, an antique Jewish prayer book, it places Hanna Heath, and Australian book conservator on the job to restore the tome before it goes on museum display. During her work, she finds small articles and unique details within the book - a butterfly wing, a stain on a page, a hair, and more – and they provide the device for the narrative to span the imagined history of the book, going back in time with each episode, all of which are woven into Hanna’s story in the present (set in 1996).

Each story has a poignancy of the human condition, portraying times in Europe’s history many of which are on the more obscure side of traditional Western readership awareness: the plight of Muslim and Jewish refugees during the tumultuous years of the Communist resistance against the Nazis in Yugoslavia during World War II; the challenges of Jewish life in Vienna in 1894 where undercurrents of anti-Semitism are growing more pronounced with each day; Venice 1609 where the Jewish Ghetto struggles for survival under the iron supervision of the ruling Catholic hierarchy; Tarragona, Spain 1492, where labors for survival under the lethal dictates of the Inquisition are always on the razor’s edge; Seville, Spain 1408 where Muslim rulers treat their Jewish slaves with fatal disregard. As Hanna commits herself to risking both her professional reputation and her relationship with her mother on the line, the reader delves continually deeper on a voyage of discovery of all the book’s mysteries. It was a rewarding, well-paced and educational read, and I recommend it highly.   

I bought this book at a garage sale for a dollar. I confess my first impression of the title, cover graphics and high level messaging, was that this might be kind of a New Age-ish genre tract with touchy-feely sentiments expressed, and not backed up with reliable research. Maybe’ yes,’ maybe ‘no’ on the purchase. But reading more of the book sleeve made me take pause, and at a garage sale, for a buck, I’m not seeing too much downside to the investment. And indeed, sometimes there is work from the New Age field which has merit, but the genre is crowded, in my view, with a volume of extraordinary and speculative writing that I exercise caution when committing my time to enter that world of content.

Reading this book, however, was something completely different than I expected, and it stands as one of the top ten books of my life. It was the source of a paradigm shift in how I viewed history and the ascent of man (with a nod to Jacob Bronowski’s great work of the same title). It was with The Alphabet Versus the Goddess that I began to keep notes, with page notations on a separate piece of paper, which are still tucked into the book and which I use for reference even now. To quote Larry Dossey, MD and author, from the back cover of the book: “This is a bomb of a book – a highly original, titillating thesis that will delight, infuriate, challenge and enlighten.” I was not infuriated, but I could see how other readers might be.

Before his death in 2009 Dr. Leonard Shlain (comedian Albert Brooks’ father-in-law), was chief of laparoscopic surgery at California Medical Center and also the author of Art & Physics: Parallel Vision in Space, Time, and Light. His credentials as a respected traditional physician and a published author were established before this book. The table contents for The Alphabet Versus the Goddess gives a glimpse of the journey through the evolution of knowledge in store for the reader. From Image/Word, Hunters/Gathers, Right Brain/Left Brain, Males: Death/Females: Life, the writing forms associated with the pre-Biblical religions – cuneiform and hieroglyphs  – and on to the Hebraic writing, Shulain describes the foundations of the development of knowledge and how it was transmitted to the people of these cultures. The book explores oral traditions, Asian pictographic based forms of writing, as well as the advent of Christianity and Islam with their accompanying forms of writing, and the author analyzes the collective influence and impact on their host cultures. The book’s scope spans all the way to the present where a new literacy is evolving that encompasses the Internet generation – screen based, not the written page, which is more search oriented, icon-driven and visual, less linear and verbal. It’s a fascinating exploration into how knowledge evolved, how it was conveyed, with both oral and written traditions, and how these forms of content conveyance impacted the very foundations of how people thought, and how those modes of thinking molded various stages and forms of society. I highly recommend this thought-provoking and enlightening work. I’m due to read it again soon. 

I clearly remember the first time I heard mention of Professor Joseph Needham’s name. I was taking a summer class in World History at Boston University where I learned that Chinese explorers came by ship to Eastern Africa long before Columbus got credit for discovering the New World. The existence of this British professor who shared rich insights into China’s inner secrets immediately intrigued me. It was not until many years later, however, that I came across this book in a Daedalus catalog, and as soon as I saw it, I knew I’d want to read it. Joseph Needham was the man who opened a window on China’s history to the world, and Simon Winchester tells the story of this unique man in a page-turning story filled with vivid and rich experiences depicting a man and a time with rare, entertaining and informative insight.

In 1937, while working as a biochemist at Cambridge University in England, Joseph Needham met a visiting scientist from China with whom he ultimately had a life-long affair, a relationship that would impact the course of his life, and by extension mankind’s understanding of China. Through her, he became acquainted with elements of the hidden story of China, its ancient technological and scientific past. Needham became deeply intrigued by the country, the culture, the people and the rich tradition of their inventiveness. As a result, Needham was determined to explore that blind spot in Western understanding of China, and after studying the Chinese language, accepted an invitation to visit China. That visit was the beginning of a decades-long relationship with the country, with a series of expeditions, which culminated in his writing a seventeen volume encyclopedia – Science and Civilization of China – documenting the comprehensive story of China’s history and their long list of technical innovations that the Western world has benefited from, but has up to that point little or no awareness or appreciation of their origins.

The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom reads much like an epic fast moving novel at times, with cinematic moments where Needham is visiting the most remote regions of China in search of rare books, or a escaping a city under attack from Japanese, which is doomed to fall two days later. Balancing intimate personal stories with accounts engaged with the struggle for international political advantage, Simon Winchester paints an informative and engaging picture of Needham’s life and work. Learning about Needham is indeed an important chapter of history to understand the world from a more informed perspective. I read this book after my own visit to China. I enjoyed it immensely, and felt richer after finishing it, and it provided added context to places I had visited. I highly recommend this informative and entertaining read. I would not be surprised if we see a movie of his life sometime in the near future. 

I’ve just finished reading all of John le Carré’s twenty-three novels (including the somewhat obscure Naïve and Sentimental Lover). I’m a fan and student of le Carré’s his writing, and a devotee of the spy novel genre. Wikipedia notes that in a BBC interview with John le Carré (a pen name for David John Moore Cornwell), the author was asked to name his Best of le Carré list, to which the novelist answered: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Tailor of Panama and The Constant Gardener. I, of course, love these novels, with a special fondness for Tinker Tailor Solder Spy and all of the George Smiley books. I find myself, however, reflecting back on The Night Manager as a notable member of my personal top four list for this author.

Wikipedia places the book in this context: “With the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, le Carré's writing shifted to portrayal of the new multilateral world. For example, The Night Manager, his first completely post-Cold-War novel, deals with drug and arms smuggling in the murky world of Latin America drug lords, shady Caribbean banking entities, and look-the-other-way western officials.”

Unlike a majority of le Carré’s which involve people already in the spy trade–or who are at least ingrained within the government and its secret agendas and find themselves more deeply and involuntarily entangled in it–The Night Manager depicts Jonathan Pine, a British soldier turned luxurious hotel night auditor . Pine experiences a series of events that compel him to take an action which drives him straight into the heart a precarious situation, to offer his services to a secret British agency, to balance the scales of justice. There’s a clarity and directness to the novelist’s story and character moves, that are less moody and equivocal than le Carré’s others, and in turn deliver a more traditional and satisfying (to this American reader’s palate) denouement. While there are rich shadings on to all the character’s sense of moral compass, as is traditional in le Carré’s stories, this book gave me someone to root for more emphatically, rather than bear witness to actions and sometimes tragic consequences as they unfold in many of le Carré’s story worlds. And there’s a nice love story. A number of le Carré’s books have been made into movies, and I see that this is now being prepared as a six part television series for BBC television (for 2016 release). I think it will translate well into that medium.  

In researching Early Christianity for my novel Sub Rosa- Sanctuary’s End, Elaine Pagels’ writings have been one of my mainstays for insightful sources of measured scholarly information based on well documented research. Her books The Gnostic Gospels and Beyond Belief: the Secret Gospel of Thomas are two notable titles in her list of important writings which I have also read. Hers is a studious, respectful and revealing journey into religious history which stands in contrast to the traditional rigid dogma and beliefs (in my opinion) too often espoused by established Christian institutions such as the Roman Catholic Church. Yet in reading Dr. Pagels’ various works on Gnostic Christianity, I found sensible answers to questions that had long lingered for me and that remained unanswered during my upbringing as a Roman Catholic. 

One of the core questions was, from a scholarly perspective, who was Satan in religious history? Did this powerful figure’s story change in any way, or evolve over time? For example what was this figure’s role in historic Jewish culture, from which Christianity was founded? In Dr. Pagels’ book The Origin of Satan I found answers expressed in a highly readable, compelling presentation and a reasoned explanation. She observed that religious scholars accept that the first appearance of the figure was in early Old Testament Biblical writings. In this figure’s earliest appearance as Śṭn it was actually not an individual at all, but any one of a category of God’s angels who was sent to act as an adversary, whose mandate is to oppose or obstruct mankind’s will or actions (p. 39). In the book Pagels makes the case that the figure of Satan ultimately evolved into an agent for Jews and Christians to demonize their rivals, such as pagans, other Christian sects, and Jews. This made great sense to me, since in Satan’s current form, he is the ruthless and all-powerful contender, the challenger, for the rule of the world against the will of God for the Christians and Jews. This concept is confusing for some, since a figure of this powerful stature should rightly be considered a god himself—the God of Evil—but that idea stands in direct conflict with the concept of monotheism upon which these faiths firmly stand. To suggest that concept, that there is a God of Evil, would be heresy.

In my quest to gain a better understanding of what the landscape of Christianity was like centuries ago, in its many different forms (over 180) during the time of my novel which takes place in 391 AD, in Alexandria, Egypt, I found this book, and many others of Pagels to be invaluable sources to help me depict a time of Christian belief which was very much in flux. It was a world of belief very different than the Christianity of today. I found The Origin of Satan a highly rewarding, insightful read, and I still refer to it years later after my initial study of this important book. 

This is one of those book encounters where you see a novel (and an author’s name) for the first time at Barnes & Noble, and it catches your eye. The graphics of the hard back sleeve compelled me to check it out, then the description of the story pushed me on to purchase. There you have it: a classic case of judging a book by its cover. The subject matter of the Napoleon’s Pyramids struck a chord for me since it dealt with subject matter I’m interested in, and the time and place of the story preceded and slightly overlapped the setting of my second book Sub Rosa – The Lost Formula. Napoleon’s Pyramids takes place about sixteen years earlier than my novel, and I was interested to see how the author treated the time, the genre and the elements of the story. I wasn’t disappointed, but I was a little surprised. 

I thought the cover graphics spoke more of a serious-toned historical thriller, with a hint of an esoteric theme, but the read ended up being a bit irreverent and wise-cracking. Written from the first person perspective, Napoleon’s Pyramids follows the adventures of Ethan Gage, Ben Franklin’s assistant at one time, an expatriate American adventurer, and a man on the run. He must scramble out of Paris, with the local gendarmerie in pursuit, and finds himself on his way to join Napoleon’s army on the Egyptian campaign. Gage is something of an impertinent bad boy of an adventurer, a gambler and womanizer, who loves to see what’s over the next hill. And it’s the result of one of his gambling wins that sent him hurtling out of the city to see what fate might offer him next. His prize from the gambling table, however, is a mysterious ancient artifact (pictured on the cover) which others seek zealously and ruthlessly, and the relic ties directly into an esoteric secret whose key is in Egypt, the very place Gage is headed. 

I enjoyed the read, and came to appreciate Gage’s cheeky style in the midst of a fast-moving historical thriller with supernatural touches. Think Indiana Jones meets Napoleon. William Dietrich, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, historian and naturalist had written five novels before this, as well as three non-fiction titles. Following Napoleon’s Pyramids, the first of the Ethan Gage novels, Dietrich went on to write six more at the time of this writing (The Rosetta Key, The Dakota Cipher, The Barbary Pirates, The Emerald Storm and Three Emperors). I’ve read the first four. I recommend this book as a light, quick read that provides interesting historical insights. It’s a fast-paced entertaining tale. The Rosetta Key, the following episode in the Gage series, is equally satisfying.   

David Levering Lewis, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and many other awards, offers a book that provides an insightful and invaluable depiction of the land of Islam before its rise, and the movement of Islam through its expansion from Mecca, north into Asia Minor and Persia, and west across northern Africa, to finally cross the Straits of Gibraltar to spread across the Iberian Peninsula and with an attempt to conquer France. Indeed the mandate for each successive Muslim caliphate (the main Islamic central government, led by the caliph) was jihad (to spread Islam in any way needed), which meant in practice to expand the existing Islamic empire through war and conquest. Long before the European Christians launched the Crusades into the Holy Land, Muslims had been striving to expand into Europe and conquer it, and Islamic military history has its share of slaughter and mayhem. And contrary to the Crusaders goal of controlling the Holy Land so that Christian pilgrims could worship in peace, the Muslims were engaged in a centuries-long strategy of continual expansion of the caliphate, with the ultimate goal of establishing their faith as the one and only faith of the world.

In the vacuum of unified central power left after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Islamic expansionism reached Europe in 711 and was not ultimately turned back till 1492. Indeed Europe was under constant threat from Islam for over three hundred years before Pope Urban II called the First Crusade. The historic Battle of Poitiers was a critical contest that would decide the very fate of Europe, where the Islamic expansionism was ultimately stopped and turned back. It was in contemporary accounts of this battle that the first reference to the term ‘Europeans’ is found. We also learn about Charles the Great--Charlemagne—and his critical role in uniting Europe, as well as the history of his grandfather Charles Martel—Charles the Hammer—who was also a critical figure in stemming the aggressive Muslim tide in Europe.

NYU Professor Lewis expels many preconceptions of the history of Islam, especially with its chapter of European control. I enjoyed this book a great deal, and found it easy for the lay person to read. It is rich in maps, and a timeline for helpful reference. I think with the current cultural debate of ‘what is Islam, and how does it fit in today’s world culture?’ that it is important for people of inform themselves, and understand the critical historical points of reference on this charged subject. I found God’s Crucible to be written from a neutral perspective, encouraging informed discussion on my part when I find myself in a conversation about this subject. I especially found the story of Mohammed compelling reading, and how the two branches of Islam split—the Sunni and the Shia—and how much that division has impacted world events today. You also learn interesting tidbits, such as the origin of the word Saracen, the medieval term Europeans used for Muslims: saraceni is Latin for ‘people of the tents.’

I am an avid fan of Bernard Cornwell. He is for me the master of historical fiction. Some say he is the next Patrick O’Brian of Master and Commander fame (who I have also read). In my view he has far surpassed O’Brian’s great body of work. At this writing, I’ve read fourteen of Mr. Cornwell’s more than fifty novels. I began with his Sharpes novels (set in Spain during Napoleon’s campaign), have read most of his Starbuck Chronicles from the Civil War, enjoyed the Grail Quest series set during the Hundred Years War, and more. They all depict different periods of history, with faithfully researched fast-moving stories, rich characters, heart, humor and always vividly described action with details that evoke the cinema in the mind’s eye. My favorite series is the Saxon Stories (aka The Warrior Chronicles) of which The Last Kingdom is the first book.

I read The Pale Rider first, knowing it was the second in the Saxon Stories series, because it was at the Agoura Hills Book Cellar (hardbacks for $1.00), and I, by policy, grab any Cornwell title I don’t already have. (I had the sixth book in the series already, but not the first.) I was interested in reading the second book in a series, before the first, to see if I somehow felt like it was an incomplete experience. I loved it as a standalone read. It gave me a rich insight into a piece of history of which I only had a general knowledge: the late ninth and early tenth century England, the era when the Viking hold on the region was tenacious, and one man had a vision of unification for the land: Alfred the Great.

The main character of The Last Kingdom—and Saxon Stories series—is Lord Uhtred of Bebbanburg. He narrates his story in the first person, an old man, remembering his storied life as a witness and participant in the historic forming of England under the leadership of Alfred the Great. Alfred was the first king with the vision and the plan to bring England under one rule, and the only English king to be titled “the Great.” Born of an old Saxon family which had lived for years in the coastal fortified town of Bebbanburg in Northumbria—(what is now the part of England just south of Scotland on the English Channel)—Uhtred recounts his days as a boy, captured by the Vikings, and nurturing the old pagan ways of worship, only to find himself later, a seasoned young warrior, fighting on the side of Alfred. Not yet known as "The Great", Alfred was king of Wessex, the southernmost kingdom of the land. Uhtred’s struggle to maintain his personal integrity with the pagan gods, and balancing it against Alfred’s devout Christianity, is juxtaposed with the Saxon's undying dream to return to Bebbanburg and reclaim his title as Alfred maintains his dedicated, and sometimes desperate, struggle against the Vikings. Uhtred’s allegiances are conflicted. Feeling loyalty and warmth toward some Vikings lords, while harboring blood feud rivalries with others, Uhtred is Alfred’s most potent weapon against the Vikings. But Alfred also feels he can never truly trust Uhtred. The Last Kingdom was a rich entertaining, page-turner, and I was compelled to forge on through more of the riveting Saxon Stories. I then read the third through sixth books in the series: Lords of the North, Sword Song, The Burning Land and Death of Kings. I’ve got two more to go.

NOTE: Check out Bernard Cornwell's Reading Club, where my book Sub Rosa - Sanctuary's End is posted.