More Books

Two months later than scheduled, I finally took delivery of a big parcel that I ordered from Amazon in the US and that were sitting on a friend's desk ever since; at the time, he had planned to be in London within five days, but only got across the Atlantic yesterday to come to his sister's wedding in Dublin. The three books were one's I'd been seeking for some time without success. The Arabists: The Romance of an American Elite, which is the only book written by the Atlantic Monthly's Robert D Kaplan I've not yet read. Blinded by the Right, is the confessionak memoir by American journalist David Brock, previously best known for his hatchet-job The Real Anita Hill and expose of the world of the conservative "movement" media in nineties Washington. Finally, there is Thucydides' history of the conflict between Athens and Sparta. I've almost no knowledge of ancient Greeece - I'm embarassed to say I'm not even cultivated enough to know how to pronounce his name - so I was tempted to get the encyclopedic Landmark edition, stuffed with maps and explanatory background information.