I picked up a diamond in the rough at an 'airport' the other day: The Religion by Tim Willocks. Here's a review from the NY times Sunday Book Review.
It has an engaging, vividly-described plot and addresses questions of self-image and destiny against the backdrop of the fabled Ottoman siege of Malta in 1565 CE. I particularly enjoyed the protagonist's questions about love and war and, while I was able to maybe take a more personal benefit from it than some might, I think that any would enjoy this book purely on its merits as a good story. I tore through all 688 pages in one day because it was so engrossing! I will caution a prospective reader that love and war are both described in painstaking detail and weak stomaches and more demure souls might want to defer (or at least skip a few pages now and again).
Book Recommendation
Book Recommendation
"A man may die yet still endure if his work enters the greater work, for time is carried upon a current of forgotten deeds, and events of great moment are but the culmination of a single carefully placed thought." - Chime of Eons
Re: Book Recommendation
Thanks for the suggestion! Checking it out.
"My pain is constant and sharp, and I do not hope for a better world. In fact, I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to survive."
Re: Book Recommendation
I am going to derail this topic to a general book-recommendation-thread 
Those who know me a bit better know already which book I am going to recommend to the broad mass! I recommend to anyone to read Nelson Mandela's autobiography Long walk to Freedom. It is a fascinating, informative, moving and absolutely well written contempuary document of South Africa and a great man. It not only gives lots information on Nelson Mandela as person but also on the live of native africans, their culture, the cruelty and breathtaking injustice of the apartheid regime. Also, one gets to know many of the not so well-known heroes of the struggle for freedom of the south african people. Even if one does not like autopbiographies, like I usually don't, might find this book to be truly inspiring and revealing. Despite being a volume of over 800 pages, it is a considerably short and absorbing lecture that teaches a lot to the nova-day reader.
Cheers.
Those who know me a bit better know already which book I am going to recommend to the broad mass! I recommend to anyone to read Nelson Mandela's autobiography Long walk to Freedom. It is a fascinating, informative, moving and absolutely well written contempuary document of South Africa and a great man. It not only gives lots information on Nelson Mandela as person but also on the live of native africans, their culture, the cruelty and breathtaking injustice of the apartheid regime. Also, one gets to know many of the not so well-known heroes of the struggle for freedom of the south african people. Even if one does not like autopbiographies, like I usually don't, might find this book to be truly inspiring and revealing. Despite being a volume of over 800 pages, it is a considerably short and absorbing lecture that teaches a lot to the nova-day reader.
Cheers.
Weit in der Champagne im Mittsommergrün,
dort, wo zwischen Grabkreuzen Mohnblumen blühn,
da flüstern die Gräser und wiegen sich leicht
im Wind, der sanft über das Gräberfeld streicht.
dort, wo zwischen Grabkreuzen Mohnblumen blühn,
da flüstern die Gräser und wiegen sich leicht
im Wind, der sanft über das Gräberfeld streicht.
Re: Book Recommendation
I'd like to recommend Jack Whyte's Knight's of the Black and White which is the first of a trilogy.
the book follows the historical figure Hugh de Payens, the first Grandmaster of the poor knights
of christ and the temple of solomon (later dubbed the Templar Knights) about how he comes to
create the order and his previous connections to a secret order in france called the Order of Rebrith
in Sion.
this first book mostly centres about the orders activities to find the fabled Templar treasure on the
Temple Mount.
Anyway a great book.
the book follows the historical figure Hugh de Payens, the first Grandmaster of the poor knights
of christ and the temple of solomon (later dubbed the Templar Knights) about how he comes to
create the order and his previous connections to a secret order in france called the Order of Rebrith
in Sion.
this first book mostly centres about the orders activities to find the fabled Templar treasure on the
Temple Mount.
Anyway a great book.
Re: Book Recommendation
A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin. I read these a long time ago (some of you may find a name that I now shame-facedly admit to stealing when I was in middle school) and now they're making a TV show out of them on HBO. Both are excellent quality entertainment avenues.
Jamais arriere.