Napoleon - David Chandler

David Chandler is one of the most celebrated English speaking expert on Napoleon Bonaparte's life. His most critically acclaimed work on the subject is The campaigns of Napoleon, which contains a lot of military related details. Even though I'm not a fan of that side of the story, the life of Napoleon is an extremely interesting topic, as the Corsican was not only a military genius but also had a profound impact on European and world history, society, politics, law and culture.

Polarized - Patong, Phuket, Thailand

 

 

Hard like steel, soft like cotton.
Dark like an eclipse, bright like a star.
Still like eternity, floating like a leaf.

The 25th hour - Patong, Phuket, Thailand

 

Ineffable, elusive
Pathologically shy
Spotted by few people
Just when dawn steps over night
Barely one time photographed
By the man who took this shot.
Ladies and gentlemen
This is a rare chance
The 25th hour
Was there for nearly an hour
And about an hour later
It got swallowed by the past.

 

The enchantress of Florence - Salman Rushdie

This is not the first book by Salman Rushdie that I read. He somehow reminds me of Umberto Eco: impressive historical references, wonderful command of the language and astonishing creativity.
The main locations of the novel are Mughal Hindustan and Florence, Italy; many chapters, though, are based in between those two places: Uzbekistan, Persia and the Ottoman Empire above all.

Memoirs of Hadrian - Marguerite Yourcenar

This French literary wizard managed to write the imagined autobiography of one of the most important ancient Roman leaders, the third of the so called “five good emperors”.
Throughout the book Hadrian is going over the most important phases of his life, “the literary excuse” being a letter addressed to his adopted grandson Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic philosopher who would then become emperor himself.
Hadrian is a strong, clever, wise and erudite man, a great military and political chief, in love with Greece and Greek culture, and Yourcenar manages to revive the workings of this man’s mind by means of a refined and beautifully rendered prose.

Jerusalem: the biography - Simon Sebag Montefiore

The history of the holy and mystical city par excellence from King’s David reign to the intifadas.
This is a marvelous work by a famous historian who manages to tell the history of the city basing it on written, oral and archeological sources, stating merits and faults of all the people, civilizations and religions that had a part in it.

The city of Joy - Dominique Lapierre

Back in the seventies Father Stephan Kovalski, a French-Polish priest, arrives to one of the most infamous of the Indian slums: Calcutta’s “Anand Agar”, also known as the “City of Joy”. Being driven by a fervent faith and an equally ardent desire to help those in need, he definitely landed in the right place: notwithstanding its name, the slum is one of the poorest, dirtiest and socially problematic neighborhoods in India and probably in the whole world. As a western Roman Catholic priest in a slum full of poor Indian Hindus, Muslims and a few Christians, at first Kovalski is looked upon with skepticism. Yet through his willingness to share the same harsh conditions of his neighbors and help them, he slowly manages to win their trust. Towards the end of the book a rich, young and equally committed American doctor - Max Loeb - will join Kowalski’s group of volunteers.