The Wandering Falcon

(A caveat at the beginning: I read this book in Malayalam translation, and pretty bad translation at that. It may be better in the original.) Jamil Ahmad was a civil servant in the Pakistan Civil Services, and he worked extensively in the hilly regions which serve as the border between Afghanistan an......more

This is a difficult book to review, although I must say from the start that I truly enjoyed it. If you read it, I have a suggestion. Pretend that you are at a library or an outdoor event, in a group gathered around to listen to a great storyteller. There is tea for everyone and perhaps some dates, n......more

With a unique snippets-like format, this book takes the reader into the deeper recesses of the cultural landscape of the tribal region of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran. To me it seemed like a mini narrative to challenge the modern world's prevalent conceptions of society, culture, and above all the......more

This book has a very weird format. The weirdest I’ve read yet, because it seems to be composed of disparate short stories, which then link with each other with our protagonist as the common point. And of course other authors have also used this particular format of writing, some with quite a reasona......more

This book gets the distinction of a "one-sitting read". Aside from refilling my whiskey on the rocks, I just couldn't stop. Whichever publisher brought this book to fruition should get a bonus. Everything about it was perfect. Its cover w/ built-in leaf flaps, the uneven page cuts, the coverwork, the......more