re: What are you reading?

De re publica - Cicero

In the Blood by Jack Carr

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Oh interesting choice, I wonder how differently biased it is covering the crusades from the Islamic angle .

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I’m about halfway through. I love the subject matter and I’m enjoying the presentation. One thing I’m not sure if is what parts are from Islamic sources and what aren’t. It could be that I’m listening to the audiobook and missing out on footnotes, I don’t know. But he gives nice narratives about events, and I appreciate how he doesn’t only focus on the Levantine but also talks extensively about other war fronts such as Sicily and Spain. But my issue is his narrative doesn’t always seem, or at least it’s not clearly evident to me, to come from Islamic sources. He will sometimes mention what a specific Islamic source says about an event—but this makes me wonder about all the narrative he’s giving that he doesn’t mention the source.

His book may include footnotes that clarify, or perhaps the Islamic sources are simply too fragmented to form a coherent history, I don’t know. But what I’m trying to clumsily say is the book is interesting and it certainly does cite a lot of Islamic sources but I can’t always tell what parts are not coming from Islamic sources.

As far as the Muslims’ viewpoint, overall it seems the Muslims had a healthy respect for the fighting prowess of the Franks, and generally hated the Franks and considered jihad against the Franks to be utmost importance and a high honor. Everything that modern academia has come to hate about the Crusaders can be said about Muslims of the same era.

Sandstorm - James Rollins

Yes I read the Asbridge book also. Love this time period.

For the Muslims, from this book, the conflict with Christianity was unapologetically a religious holy war. And it did not start with Urban’s sermon in Clermont as it does for westerners. That sermon, perhaps understandably, is not moment at all for Muslims. They viewed the holy war as beginning before the First Crusade, in Sicily and Spain.

The Searcher by Tana French

Neuromancer - William Gibson

The Trojan war- Barry Strauss

Easy little 185 page read

Then got a 900 page Napoleon biography looming on the nightstand. That ones gonna be a hoss

Devil’s Hand by Jack Carr

Book 4 of the James Reece series

Narrative of the life of Fredrick Douglass - Fredrick Douglass

Intellectuals and Society - Tom Sowell

The truth and beauty - Andrew Klavan