pickUp until last year, only the 1st book of Ashour's trilogy on the expulsion of Muslim people from 16th century Granada had been translated into English. Luckily, Kay Heikkinen translated all 3 novels, which were released in one volume from AUC Press. Historical fiction that immerses you in the gorgeous detail of Islamic Andalusian society and chronicles the heartbreak of people made to abandon their culture before being forced to leave their home.
pickA humorous, clever and satirical story about book censorship. I enjoyed all the references to Orwell's 1984 and other banned books.
#ToB25
#gottacatchemall (Raticate: betrayal) @PuddleJumper
pickBooks about the future can be really fun and scary, all at the same time. This poor schlub, whose job is making sure allowed books reflect the views of the current government, is caught in a quandary when he starts to fall in love with the stories that are banned. Was never sure where this book was going, but it felt timely and sometimes realistic.
@BarbaraBB
pick#BookReport
Only two books finished this last week. While I‘m enjoying being back in the office it is cutting into my reading time. I enjoyed the tagged book. A very timely fairytale.
pickI loved this little book of travellers tales by Arabic (specifically, a Baghdadi of the Abbasid Empire from what is now Iraq, written while he was living in Egypt in 947CE) writer, Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn al-Husayn al-Mas'udi.
His accounts of Persian, Greek, Egyptian, East African,Indian, Central Asian, Chinese, Malaysian, Cambodian, etc. life and cultural practices are fascinating, and there are hints of knowledge of the Americas and Japan, all 👇
al-Mus'ādī is describing some of the wonders of Egypt, including the excavation of a temple lost beneath the desert sands. Uncovering stairs leading to the entrance, a rash man sets foot on the fourth step, triggering two swords to spring out of the walls & slice him to pieces, one of which rolls onto another trigger-step, causing the whole edifice to collapse, burying 2000 people!
I love that Indy's Tomb Raiding has such a venerable lineage! 😃
"... all traces of science have vanished and its splendour is spent; learning has become too general and has lost its depth, and one no longer sees any but people filled with vanity and ignorance, imperfect scholars who are content with superficial ideas and do not recognise the truth."
Written in 947 CE, presumably al-Mas'ūdī had the gift of precognition? Either that, or human nature is constant over the millennia, which is either ? or ?
"We beg our readers' indulgence for any mistakes or negligence which they find in this book; for our memory is weakened and it strength spent as a result of the great weariness brought about by voyages which have taken us by sea from one country to another and by land across extensive desert."
Opening line of a short selection of entries from Baghdad-born Mas'üdī's lengthy account of his 10th C. CE travels.
#FirstLineFridays @shybookowl
pickScary! First, the books. Then, the ideas. Finally, the ones who really scare the dictatorships, the ones with imagination.
Our children.
https://pen.org/transgender-books-removed-from-stonewall-national-monument-websi...
"And even though, time and time again, books had been presented to him as evil agents plotting to take over the world, and even though books had almost thrown him out of the house-not to mention biting his wife-he couldn't bear the thought of burning them. Banning them was punishment enough."
