Tag Archives: Persia-Iran

This week: science, the middle east, and a duel

Posted on May 10, 2016 by smellincoffee

Dear readers, I’m beginning to suspect books are a racket.  Today I began reading one and within fifty pages, I’d already written down four  more titles that I wanted to investigate.  No wonder people read fiction — it’s far less … Continue reading →

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Funny in Farsi

Posted on April 24, 2016 by smellincoffee

Funny in Farsi: Growing up Iranian in America© 2003 Firoozeh “Julie” Dumas240 pages Imagine a time when most Americans had never heard of Iran, when a little girl from a village thereof might as well be from Podunk, Eurasia.   … Continue reading →

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Equal of the Sun

Posted on February 28, 2016 by smellincoffee

Equal of the Sun© 2012 Anita Amirrezvani431 pages When Javaher came to the Iranian court, he did so with a secret mission: he intended to find out who murdered his father, and then return the favor.  So intent was he … Continue reading →

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Lost to the West

Posted on February 14, 2016 by smellincoffee

Lost to the West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire that Rescued Western Civilization © 2009 Lars Brownsworth 329 pages The Roman empire not not fade quietly into history in 474, when a Gothic warlord decided to run the city of Rome directly instead … Continue reading →

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This week: the usual suspects

Posted on February 8, 2016 by smellincoffee

Well, dear readers, it’s another month! I have a serious itch for science and science fiction at the moment, so I have no less than five potential science reads stacked up now, and three potential SF books. Among the numbers…Domesticated: Evolution in … Continue reading →

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Destiny, Disrupted

Posted on January 12, 2016 by smellincoffee

Destiny, Disruted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes© 2009 Tamim Ansary416 pages When Tamim Ansary was a boy, he loved history. Specifically, he loved narrativehistory, the kind of drama that brought the past to life.  The problem was that the … Continue reading →

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The Lost History of Christianity

Posted on November 9, 2015 by smellincoffee

The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia — And How It Died© 2008 Philip Jenkins315 pages For the first millennium of the church’s history, Europe was less … Continue reading →

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The Spice Route

Posted on September 1, 2015 by smellincoffee

The Spice Route© 2005 John Keay308 pages Spock was right. Having a thing is often not as pleasant as wanting a thing. It is not logical, but it is often true. Such was the case with the spice trade, which so … Continue reading →

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Gates of Fire

Posted on November 27, 2014 by smellincoffee

Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae© 1998 Steven Pressfield442 pages When Xerxes, Ruler of Asia, god-king of men, finally stood over the bodies of the few Greeks who had withstood his hordes drawn from half … Continue reading →

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