Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Category Archives: Books


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The Indian Mutiny of 1857

cover93235-mediumI know, I know.
I’ve already bored you to death – repeatedly – with my old thing about doing research and having a hell of a good time doing it.
But that’s it – I normally have an inordinate amount of fun doing research for my projects.

For Hope & Glory (you know that’s the hot topic here, right now), I had the pleasure of taking a university-level course in the history of Colonial Britain, and I read and re-read a lot of great books.
And expanded in new directions – like finally getting into the history of the Mughal.

But then there’s the serendipity thing – like, NetGalley, where I often find interesting books to read and review, offering me a review copy of The Indian Mutiny of 1857, by Colonel G.B. Malleson. Continue reading →


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Like Outer Mongolia

middleton-extremes-on-the-silk-roadIt took me a while (…) but I’m finally getting into Nick Middleton’s Extremes along the Silk Road.
I’m kicking myself for having waited so long, as the book is turning out to be a lot of fun, and filled with information and nicely-observed detail.

Middleton’s a good writer – to the point and amusing, very British in his approach to the idea of crossing the Gobi Desert as part of his exploration of the Silk Road.

And there’s a point where I had to stop and pause for a moment.

Early in his adventure, Middleton is spending some time as a guest in a local family’s ger, the round yurt typical of Mongolian nomads, and he observes how the daily routines and the lifestyle of these people has not changed in generations.

And I thought, well, neither has it changed hereabouts. Continue reading →


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Other Peoples’ Pulps: Jack Reacher

70243455I saw Jack Reacher, last night.
No, not the guy – the 2012 movie featuring Tom Cruise, and based on the work of British author Lee Child, and on the novel One Shot in particular.

I was not overwhelmed – it’s a good movie, a nice way to spend two hours while sitting by the electric fan.
The temperature outside is well over 36° C, and a fan, a bowl of ice cream and a good movie are all that I can take. Reading is impossible, as the light attracts hordes of mosquitoes1.

So, as I was saying, I liked the movie, but had some real problems with the star – Tom Cruise can do action all right, but basically he is not the 6-foot 5-inches guy Lee Child writes about.
Which is a pity. Continue reading →


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Travels with Graham Greene’s Aunt

I watched George Cukor’s Travels with my Aunt again, last night.
I had a chat with a friend about Graham Greene, his books and entertainments, and the movies that had been made from those stories, and Travels came back to me.

Nov28TravelsWithMyAunt-poster

I did not remember the movie opened at a sparsely-attended funeral, but I remembered very well Maggie Smith in the title role.
And being a Graham Greene story, it is of course a caper movie, a story of less-than-straight individuals doing less-than-legal things.
It’s great fun, and highly melancholic in spots, and it takes place in London, Paris and parts south around the Mediterranean, in the sixties. And it features an eccentric, non-conformist, absolutely scandalous woman. I had to watch it again. Continue reading →


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At last, The Far Pavilions

The_Far_PavilionsMy goodness, it’s been 18 months!
In January 2015, I announced my intention of reading M.M. Kaye’s The Far Pavilions1 as part of my reading list of adventure/historical novels set in India.
I got me a cheap, second-hand, printed-so-small-you’ll-burn-your-eyes hardback copy of the Italian translation2, and then all hell broke loose, my priorities changed, the book got buried at the bottom of my reading pile, and I picked it up again five days ago.
I’m going through it like a speeding train – basically because it’s a novel that reads like a breeze. It will be over by Wednesday.

Now, some personal background – I’m pretty sure my mother read The Far Pavilions when it came out in Italian in 1980. My aunt lent my mom her copy – I have this faint memory of the two of them talking about it. And both my mom and my aunt were into it because of the romantic element – about which, more later.

So, what’s the deal with The Far Pavilions? Continue reading →


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The only thing I have left

hyams zenI bought my copy of Joe Hyams’ Zen in the Martial Arts in 1992, while I was in London1.
The friend that was with me in the bookstore dismissed this beautifully illustrated book as

typical Yankee-a##hole mystical crap

and he was completely off the mark – but he was a very self-centered person, the sort that gets a kick out of making feel bad the people around them.

Anyway…
In his book, Hyams relates a discussion between himself, Bruce Lee and screenwriter Stirling Silliphant2, about time. Continue reading →