Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Category Archives: Books


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How to cook a wolf

31670Not all pulp readings come from pulp magazines.

I discovered How to cook a wolf a few years back, as I was digging on Amazon in search of cheap Christmas gifts for my friends.

Written by legendary gourmand and writer Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher, despite its grim title the volume does not explain how to get a wolf on the table – but it is indeed an interesting read1.
And it has a certain relevance for aficionados of adventure writing and pulp fiction.
Because How to cook a wolf was published in 1942, and it is a book about home economy and kitchen management for a nation facing rationing and the many dramatic shortages of wartime. Continue reading →


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Russian river, four letters

9781594203671OK, full disclosure: I knew about the river Amur because of crosswords puzzles.

Russian river, four letters

Maybe, had I known it is also called Black Dragon River, I would have checked out the Amur river before.

Luckily, I was offered an ARC 1 of Dominic Ziegler’s Black Dragon River.
The tag-line A journey down the Amur River, at the borderland of empires sums up nicely the contents of this thick volume that Pengiun Books will be releasing later this year.

What’s so hot about the Amur? Continue reading →


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The many faces of Marlowe

long-goodbyeMy friend Giulia – she has just started her new blog, and you should check it out – suggested a fun idea, the other day: why not do a post about Philip Marlowe.
About Philip Marlowe at the movies.
About the actors that were Marlowe in the movies.
And I thought… why not?

Because you see, Philip Marlowe is a small wonder – a pulp character that made thegrade to serious literature without even trying.
Ray Chandler‘s work is there to defuse any argument about popular literature as inferior narrative, as a lesser art.
Marlowe – and Chandler – have become, without really trying, the champions of a whole body of literature. Continue reading →


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Robert Crisp’s Zen and the Art of Donkey Maintenance

9781448215225Robert Crisp’s Zen and the Art of Donkey Maintenance, soon to be published by Bloomsbury Books, is a strange affair.

A sportsman and a war hero, with a long track record of poor discipline and even worse business sense, in December 1966 Bob Crisp abandoned his wife and two sons and, with 65 pounds in his pocket, made himself scarce.
He moved to a small hut in Greece, where he lived alone, communing with nature, on his ten pounds war veteran pension.

He also had an agreement with a newspaper, and he published a diary of sorts, in installments, under an alias.

Zen… is a collection of those newspaper columns, edited and arranged by Crisp’s somewhat estranged son. The pieces cover Crisp’s experiences both in Greece and during his donkey-assisted travel on foot around the island of Crete. Continue reading →


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Tokyo, from the inside

cover66758-mediumThey used to say I ragazzi di Torino sognano Tokyo poi vanno a Berlino (Kids from Turin dream about Tokyo then go to Berlin).
They even made a movie, about it.
Indeed, the kids in my generation were endlessly fascinated by the East, Asia, and yes, Japan and Tokyo – we were to the forefront of the first anime and manga invasion, after all.
Most of us dreamed about Tokyo, very few made it there for more than a quick package tour, and a lot of others went to Berlin – to this day, my brother’s favorite city.

I travel with books these days, and I had quite some fun with Micael Pronko’s Beauty and Chaos.
Continue reading →