The Alexandria Link by Steve Berry (2007)
Read: November 2012 - January 2013
This took me a loooong time to read. I pulled it out to start reading the week before Little Miss was born, but didn't actually get a chance to pick it up until she was a month old, and even then I didn't manage to read much in the evening before my eyes started to droop!
I had obviously picked this up because of the word 'Alexandria' in the title, but in fact only a small segment of the book was located in Egypt. The theme of Middle East though did run through the books concept (but not locations)
At first I thought the book read too much like it was written to become a film. There was too much description of the action and too many different locations and situations and not enough 'story'. After a while though it did start to grow on me. What grew on me was not the characters, or the multiple location / story strands (which were rather annoying) but was the concept behind the novel. The premise was that the location of the Holy land in the bible was incorrectly translated and located on the Mediterranean by mistake (intention?) rather than on the Arabian peninsula. I thought that this was a really clever idea and am fascinated by the suggestion that place names and physical features could be reinterpreted. There is some historical support for this theory, but not enough for it to get much mainstream grounding.
This is the last trashy Egypt/ME-themed book that I have on the shelf...but the CSA have another book fair this week where I may be able to pick up a few things!
Read: November 2012 - January 2013
This took me a loooong time to read. I pulled it out to start reading the week before Little Miss was born, but didn't actually get a chance to pick it up until she was a month old, and even then I didn't manage to read much in the evening before my eyes started to droop!
I had obviously picked this up because of the word 'Alexandria' in the title, but in fact only a small segment of the book was located in Egypt. The theme of Middle East though did run through the books concept (but not locations)
At first I thought the book read too much like it was written to become a film. There was too much description of the action and too many different locations and situations and not enough 'story'. After a while though it did start to grow on me. What grew on me was not the characters, or the multiple location / story strands (which were rather annoying) but was the concept behind the novel. The premise was that the location of the Holy land in the bible was incorrectly translated and located on the Mediterranean by mistake (intention?) rather than on the Arabian peninsula. I thought that this was a really clever idea and am fascinated by the suggestion that place names and physical features could be reinterpreted. There is some historical support for this theory, but not enough for it to get much mainstream grounding.
This is the last trashy Egypt/ME-themed book that I have on the shelf...but the CSA have another book fair this week where I may be able to pick up a few things!
