High Noon by Nora Roberts

High Noon by Nora Roberts (2007)
Read: January 2011

I was sent this book as part of the UKNova gift swap. The swap is designed for you to send/receive gifts that show something about the place that you live in. So I got a copy of High Noon by Nora Roberts. And not just any copy - a signed copy! Apparently it took 12 hours of queuing to get this signed the sender told me and that "it's very American"...
I was a little surprised to get a book, as normally you get some weird food stuffs or tea towels and post cards, but as I am a real booky person since moving out here it was a really great gift (I don't know if the sender knew this or not). I didn't know the book or author, but a little browse on the internet and I think it's been made into a TV series (?).  


Halfway through reading it my thoughts were:

"I'm reading the book that I was sent in the UKNova gift swap at the moment. The sender said that it describes America really well - well only if America is full of "single, female hostage negotiators with a complicated back story and love life that collides with their professional life only to find romance blossom but be under threat by a colleague at the same time" Bleugh! I'll try and finish it to do the swap justice...."

Did my view change? Well I ploughed through it quickly enough - it was an easy read and although it was a bit trashy it was more engaging than some fiction that's all about love and life. This was a cop story with a bit of intrigued and so it was entertaining and I had to think a bit (not much, but a bit).


I'm still not sure how this is "really American". It can't described a typical American life or American Dream, can it? Maybe the dramatisation and love-through-complicated-back-story-with-hang-ups is typically American TV / Book and this is what is popular there. Yes that must be it - kind of like CSI is popular maybe? The fact that this book has the "Nora Roberts seal" that guarantees that it is an original work suggests how prolific this writer is - Americans just can't get enough of it I assume.

Desperately Seeking Paradise by Ziauddin Sardar

Desperately Seeking Paradise by Ziauddin Sardar (2004)
Read: December 2010- January 2011

Despite being about the length of most books I read, it felt like I was taking an age to read this one. I didn't get much read over the Xmas break, so maybe that's why it feels longer, but for some reason I really wanted to finish this book - and not in a totally good way.


I bought this book in BookSpot which is an expat second hand bookshop here in Maadi. I go in there occasionally, but don't often buy things as recent books can be overpriced it seems. Even though you can sell back any book you buy there (for half the amount you spent on it). This looked interesting and was a good price, so I went for it.
The title of the book is "Desperately Seeking Paradise", with a subtitle of "Journey's of a Sceptical Muslim" with a picture of signposts pointing to Mecca on one side and Hackney on the other. The blurb suggests too that the Muslim author is on a journey that starts in London and takes him to Mecca and beyond in his quest to find meaning in Islam.
Sounds V Interesting, no? Especially as Hackney is not far from my home in London and we're living in a Muslim country I thought this would really shed some light.
But gosh it was far more than that. So much more dense and intense.
The author isn't just a bloke finding his own meaning in Islam, or what Islam means to him, but more an academic - who spends the book moving between various Islamic Research Centres - pondering and lobbying on how Islam should be re-interpreted in this day and age and in seeking to establish true Islamic states.
There were some engaging sections of the book that I enjoyed and found educational. These were on definitions of Knowledge in the context of Islam (I teach a course on Knowledge), discussing how disciplines could be reinterpreted in the context is Islam (an interesting suggestion that sciences, for example, should focus on addressing issues specific to Islamic nations, such as bilharzia in Egypt), responding to Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses and addressing why the Muslim community was so abhorred, but also why the author felt that a fatwa was not the right response, finally reading the responses to huge events such as the fall of the Berlin wall, 9/11 and the first Gulf War. I enjoyed reading fragments of Arabic in the book too; although I didn't recognise all of the words, some of them are those that I have learnt as Egyptian colloquial.
However the majority of the book I found to be a heavily detailed CV following the movements and writings of the author and their friendships and enemies.

Will I sell it back to BookSpot? Probably not now, as I am a hoarder of books, and now a hoarder of books related to where we live. Maybe when we leave and I realise how much I've got to take on!
Will I recommend it to others to read? Not recommend, but I am interested to know what a Muslim here in Egypt thinks of the author and of his opinions on Islam. It seems that he is quite well known - possibly. So I would like to have someone else read this, student or colleague, and find out what they think and whether this take on Islam, and certain issues within it, is common, or not.

12kg in handluggage

I want to read every single one of these books - as they all look brilliant - but 12kg per trip may be boardering on crazy right now! I know we're staying another year, but I've still got books from the summer I haven't read yet!!!

Ice Cold in Alex by Christopher Landon

Ice Cold in Alex by Christopher Landon (1957)
Read: November - December 2010

We picked this up in the summer I think (or was it at half term?) when doing the Charity Shop Run along Spring Gardens in Buxton. Our copy is a trashy paperback book-club-type version, but as we're buying all the books we can on t'Egypt we thought this is a classic we should include. Mum gave us a copy of the DVD about a year ago and I put it on for about 5 minutes, but couldn't get into it.
I knew the title was about getting a beer in Alexandria as when we visited Alexandria with the P's mum wanted to visit the bar featured in the film. We managed to find the bar and had a tea and cake there, as they don't seem to serve beer anymore :(
The story itself though is about the journey from El Alamain to Alexandria of a four-some that are retreating as the Germans are advancing on Tobrok. The story feels as claustrophobic at times as the small ambulance they were travelling in must have been - you feel that the characters rarely get time on their own, living in eachothers pockets, and dialogue often being in pairs as they other pair is resting in the back, or driving toegther up front. You feel these pairs and conversations rotating as the characters rotate their positions giving each a chance to rest or take the front.
The way the story developes you really see these pairs and relationships developing and the talking behind eachothers backs. Is the South African they've picked up what he seems; they can only discuss this when he's asleep in the back, so you feel the quiet whispering in these confined spaces well.

With hindsight I think what I should have done was read the book without taking a drink at all during the month. This would have been a great way for the book to end; with both me and the main character getting their final, long drempt of drink.

I'm up for wacthing the film now and think I'll stick passed the first 5 minutes!

The London Marathon : The History of the Greatest Race on Earth by John Bryant

The London Marathon : The History of the Greatest Race on Earth by John Bryant (2006)
Read: November 2010

I read this leading up to the Pharoanic Run. It was a really good book to read at that time - getting me into the mind set of running a race!

It is a history of the London Marathon, but it also interspersed with a history of the marathon as a race in itself. The marathon as a race seems to have kicked off from the jogging boom and from a few city marathon races, the London Marathon was born. What was interesting is how it was really just a couple of guys who started the London Marathon off - their idea and persistance to get the permissions and get people on the streets. Each year of the race it got bigger and bigger leading to where it is today as a gold mine for sponsors and charities, as well as for top atheletes.

I've enjoyed reading sporting books before (the Bannister / one-minute mile one was good) and this was the same - getting you really into the zone and feeling the sport. I finished it just before the race and chapters that were about "the wall" and training and the crowds relaly got my heart pumping ready for my own race.

The Bethlehem Murders: An Omar Youssef Novel by Matt Rees

The Bethlehem Murders: An Omar Youssef Novel by Matt Rees (2008)
Read: March 2010

I bought this over Christmas too in the same batch as The Sphinx. When I was looking for The Sphinx on Amazon I had a list of "other people who liked this bought..." and this book was on there. It was billed as a detective-type novel, by a new writer, but set, very realistically apparently in Palestine and around Gaza.Sounds good to me, so I add it to the cart.

It's really very good this book. I got right into it straight away and almost had to slow myself down when reading it, so that I could keep enjoying it for longer. The story of the crime-to-be-solved by local-turned-detective isn't what is most gripping about this, but the setting and the character. I really feel that I know more about life in Palestine as the book is full of detailed, but not over-burndered descriptions of daily life there. In the book you see the people, hear them, see the scared landscape, feel part of their lives. You witness the small parts of life, like Omar Yussef's love of his wife's food and her concern to recieve every phonecall from her husband, you also witness corruption and confusion between rival gangs patrolling the areas and a police force that is trying to police an unsustainable situation.

I knew from the first few chapters that I would be buying more of these, and so now have ordered the three other books written in the series. It's reassuring that others have written about these books saying that they are well representative of life / society in Palestine.

Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie

Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie (1937)
Read: September - October 2010


This book was left with us by Laura and Effie when they visited in May. They were thinking along the same lines as us - when in Egypt, read books set in / about Egypt - and this suited them especially as they were going on a Nile cruise!
I've not read a Christie before (but did watch Miss Marple when I was growing up!) and so the whole detective story was new to me. I didn't know how it would be structured - would I know the clues the same time as Poirot? Would he spell it out to me or would I have to guess? I did try and guess - the way I do when watching Waking The Dead on TV - and thought I had it, but maybe not.
I read mainly in the evenings for a chapter or so before bed, but this month, since starting back at work, has been crazy busy. So I would read a chapter and then put it down to "rest my eyes", planning to read more in a moment, but totally fall asleep! Then when I'd pick it up the next night I'd find I had no idea what had happened and would flick back a good few pages to when I was last really conscious of the story!!!