"I have been but little in," said Ninian hastily...

Washington's Crossing by David Hackett Fisher (21) This is a remarkably good book. I loved almost all of it and was very sorry when I was done with it. I borrowed it on CD from the library, but I will be sure to buy a copy. It gave me all sorts of ideas for wargames, for short fiction, and for work that might be interesting to do in real history. It takes the reader from the beginning of the Revolution through the aftermath of the American winter campaign in the Jerseys of 1776/1777. It includes excellent character studies of Washington and a number of his officers and some of the same (though not as comprehensive) for the British high command. Between this and other books, my appreciation for Washington, Knox, Greene, the Howe brothers, and Cornwallis (some of them already high) have grown, while my opinions of Charles Lee and Henry Clinton have plummeted. Some of the most interesting part of the book is the very detailed treatment of the British occupation of the Jerseys in the summer and autumn of 1776 and the winter campaign that followed. My only criticisms of the book are (1) that Fisher seems to challenge all of the casualty reports from the British while seeming to unquestioningly accept all those by the rebels and (2) that Fisher goes much too far, in my opinion, in trying to find relevance in current events for his work. History is worth researching and writing for any number of reasons, most of all simply for the sake of better understanding the past. A slavish insistence on being able to draw direct and immediate lessons for today from events 230+ years ago detracts from, rather than enhances, the value of a history book, IMNSHO.

Honeymoon in Tehran by Azadeh Moaveni (22) I've not yet read the same author's Lipstick Jihad, but this book makes me want to. This is an account of several years' life in Tehran, written by an Iranian-American journalist who met and married a German-Iranian man, started a family, and tried as best they could to build a life in Iran. Despite loving their country and their culture and having deep family roots there, they eventually found life under the Islamic Republic too arbitrary and stifling and left to live abroad. It gives a great perspective on life in modern Iran. I do have a few doubts as to the definitiveness of the author's take on Iranian public opinion and satisfaction with the regime; she comes from a very western-oriented, upper-middle class to upper class family from Tehran, and her time in the country outside the capitol seems to have been quite limited, as does her day to day insight into the lives of less western, less well off families. Nonetheless, she did travel widely and talked to a lot of people, and she is a useful corrective to what I see as some grievous misperceptions about Iran and its people in the west. Many Iranians detest Ahmadinejad and dislike the strictures imposed by his government and the religious authorities, but pressure from abroad will simply cause most Iranians the rally around the government they dislike.

The Master of All Desires by Judith Merkle Riley (23) I'd read this several years ago, but reclaimed it when we were going through my mum's remaining effects in storage. It's great fun in and of itself, and I also like it because it involves the same French court figures as Dorothy Dunnett's Francis Crawford books, overlapping the end of her series and mentioning a couple of important events that her characters also experience (the disastrous battle of St Quentin, England's final loss of Calais to the French). As she always does, Riley creates wonderful, engaging characters (even the baddies are appealing) and deals (as far as I know) with great respect for history, not mashing it around just to make her plot how she likes it (though, of course, when your characters speak to angels and demons, there's always a little bit of leeway from history that has to be accounted for. :-) I'm always torn between wanting to study 18th and early 19th century American and European history and wanting to study Early Modern (16th and 17th century) Europe. If I eventually go the latter route, it will in part be the fault of Dunnett and Riley.

In progress:
The Phantom Major by Virginia Cowles
Dolly and the Bird of Paradise by Dorothy Dunnett
Drinking Arak Off an Ayatollah's Beard: A Journey Through the Inside-Out Worlds of Iran and Afghanistan by Nicholas Jubber
The Fort by Bernard Cornwell
Through a Howling Wilderness: Benedict Arnold's March to Quebec, 1775 by Thomas Desjardins
The Western Front: Ordinary Soldiers and the Defining Battles of World War I by Richard Holmes
Knights of the Cross; or, Krzyzacy by Henryk Sienkiewicz
Tales of Terror and Mystery by Arthur Conan Doyle

I trimmed off a number of others that I've started but haven't actually been reading recently. If they get revived, they go back on the list.