And since my reading of Artemis Cooper’s page-turning biography, Leigh Fermor has acquired yet another fan.

He shows us that although the British occupation of Afghanistan was a doomed long-term strategy, there was nothing inevitable about a military defeat.

Selina O’Grady is also a first rate story-teller with a finely tuned ear for character and an impressive eye for atmosphere and the telling detail

So when we hear how the Huguenots of France, or the Jews and Moors of Andalucia are to be protected and tolerated by a generous peace settlement, we need to set the alarm clock for the inevitable persecution that is to come. 

The resulting mosaic of opinions draws out a fascinating composite picture of a nation that through the three cultural markers of language, music and food is triumphantly self-defined and ceaselessly inventive.

At its simplest level, it is a burlesque adventure, where a well-meaning amateur English adventurer blunders his way through a totally impractical project

Howse’s real connections are all with carved stone and the printed word, especially with the lovers of Gothic architecture

The late 19th-century had some advantages for a homegrown Muslim missionary of talent, for the tiresome quarrels between rival sectarian churches had alienated many Christian believers.

The resulting memoir, only now published ten years after her death, is a work of loving devotion and a true reflection of Lesley Blanch in her own words.

the invasion of Iraq in 2003 by the USA and its dependent allies is not only a crime, but one that was spectacularly ill-advised.

A chronological tale of the First World War might be wearyingly familiar, but by telling it from the perspective of the Ottoman Empire, Eugene Rogan grabs the reader’s attention – as if we are hearing the Iliad from the Trojan battlements.

In the background to this enduring triangular relationship a shifting chain of alliances bound the city of Aleppo to tribes of Bedouin (horse-breeding) Arabs to the east, Kurdish clans in the hills to the north and Alawi highlanders to the west.

… what makes him remarkable is his restless quest for the perfection of his craft continuously sharpened by a vast capacity for work

Over 60% of Muslims in Britain come from the lands of the old Raj - Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. So Urdu and English are the languages of communication in British Islam, not modern classical Arabic, let alone Koranic Arabic.

This biography is both funny and erudite as it chronicles a fascinating caste of dangerously charming spies, poet-scholars, scheming Oxbridge academics, dashing majors and clever queens.

... for the small readership who can engage in the poetics of two cultures situated in two different ages, it is a work of extraordinary richness.

Today Rory finds the land no longer in the hands of indigenous native farmers, but increasingly divided between factory farms and national parks, the gaps filled in with a spreading suburbia of retirement villages and tourist-friendly infrastructure.