El Borak And Other Desert Adventures – Robert E. Howard, 2010 ★★★★½

Wilder, but not as Weird

What happens when you take classic Conan, strip out all that juicy weirdness and sorcery, and double down on the daring-do by making it even more bloody and kinetic? The answers are in these stories featuring another Robert E. Howard character, El Borak.

Lesser known, yes, but in terms of pure escapism and satisfaction, this Texas gunfighter turned Middle Eastern troubleshooter plays second fiddle to no one. Del Ray’s 500-page collection of El Borak tales blazed past my eager eyes in a blur of viscera, censer fumes, and sandstorms.

The collection features seven stories Howard penned near the end of his short life featuring Francis Xavier Gordon, known to people in the hills in and around Afghanistan whom he either fights or befriends as “El Borak,” meaning “the Swift.” Four other desert-set stories of earlier vintage feature two other Howard protagonists, Kirby O’Donnell and Steve Clarney.

Guests Of The Ayatollah – Mark Bowden, 2006 ★★★

So Much for Diplomacy

For many of us, Orwell’s 1984 is arriving later than advertised. For Iran, it came five years early.

In the newspeak of the Islamic Revolution, “freedom” meant total adherence to rigidly-interpreted doctrine, “peace” was squashing anyone who thought differently, and 66 Americans became “guests” when their nation’s embassy in Tehran, Iran’s capital, was attacked on November 4, 1979.

For most of them, liberation came after 444 days. For the country they were trapped in, it is taking much longer.

The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda And The Road To 9/11 – Lawrence Wright, 2006 ★★★½

Countdown to Ground Zero

We tend to overrate and then underrate real-life monsters. We build them up to hulking status when they still threaten us, only to shrug them off once they are safely gone.

Osama bin Laden was for a time Bondian in his supervillainy. Today it’s tempting to see him as a one-hit wonder with no second act. Before 9/11 he directed a bloody attack on the USS Cole, but after his final, biggest play he accomplished little else other than being tough to kill.

The River War: An Account Of The Reconquest Of The Sudan [Second Edition] – Winston Churchill, 1902 ★★★

Vying for the Nile

History’s ability to keep on repeating itself is frightening. Settling down to read Winston Churchill’s second book, an episode of colonial ambition along the Nile at the end of the 1800s, one expects dusty Victorian drama under the palms. What one gets instead is a sneak preview of the 21^st Century, equal parts western adventurism and Arab unrest.