(no subject)

[skygiants]

My library books are overflowing my shelf! I have been trying so hard to keep my return rate higher than my check-out rate, so I went to the library and returned four books yesterday on the way to my dance class . . . and walked out with five. In my defense, two of them are extremely short! Um.

Anyways, booklogging: I forget where I heard the existence of Amin Maalouf's The Crusades Through Arab Eyes mentioned, but since I still have a whole slew of Crusades facts buzzing around in my head from the class I took my final semester at school I was definitely intrigued. And rightfully! I had read several of the Arab sources on the Crusades that he uses in class, but it was very cool to have someone string them all together into a coherent narrative, focusing mostly on the time period from the First Crusade through the Fourth. Admittedly I got a little confused between all the different sultans and emirs, but that is because one of them was assassinated literally every other page, which made it somewhat tricky to keep track. The levels of infighting were fascinating and ridiculous, on both sides. The author also has a giant crush on Saladin, but it's hard to blame him, because really who doesn't? (He has his own animated TV show in Malaysia!)

I do wish Maalouf had used even more of the primary source material than he did, but I am spoiled; my favorite Crusades text is still Jean de Joinville's Chronicles of the Crusades, which is a primary source narrative from the Fourth Crusade and awesome. I do get the impression Maalouf interpolates more primary narrative than a lot of history texts do. I also really liked his epilogue, in which he delves a little bit into the possible consequences of the Crusades for contemporary relations, and I sort of wish he'd had the room to go into that more. Anyways, recommended for anyone who has an interest in medieval history.

Comments

[skygiants]

I remember seeing your babble and making a mental note to acquire them/eyeing them every time I was in the bookstore and then forgetting to read them because I was at school at the time with no YA books in the library! And now I am in a place with MULTITUDES of YA books on the library, which means that now I have been reminded I am going to go put them on my request list now. :D

[fahye.livejournal.com]

I am really looking forward to seeing what you think of them :) I also think you'd like -- if you can find it, it's quite old and difficult to locate -- Linnets & Valerians by Elizabeth Goudge, which reads kind of like Diana Wynne Jones by way of Enid Blyton and Jane Austen's lovechild. Siblings! Magic! I reread it this year and immediately started writing very bizarre fic for it.

[skygiants]

. . . wow, that sounds like something that is 100% up my alley. Fortunately the New York Public Library is a place of miracles! They seem to have two reference copies and one for-real copy that is currently out but will be mine once whatever person has it now brings it back.

[fahye.livejournal.com]

Oh, excellent! If you like it, I also recommend The Little White Horse by the same author -- fewer siblings, but more wacky subplots to do with curses and pirates and unicorns and imaginary friends who turn out to be real (it was my ULTIMATE comfort book at a child. it also describes food in long loving detail, that way older English children's books do). Both of them are about children coming to a place and having to fix it somehow, usually through learning about the mistakes made in the past and doing something to being balance.

[skygiants]

Oh how I love books that describe food - I used to read the Narnia tea-party scene right before dinner every day when I was little to make me hungry!

[fahye.livejournal.com]

Oh, you'll LOVE Elizabeth Goudge :D

I also feel I should inform you that the first Pagan book, Pagan's Crusade, contains some pretty awesome Saladin-fanboying on the part of the protagonist.

[skygiants]

*giggling* You are so very not helping with the problematic library intake/outtake ratio mentioned at the top of my post!

[fahye.livejournal.com]

Pfff, you can get through these books pretty quickly!