REVIEW: THE VISITORS by Sally Beauman

“The Orient—including present-day Turkey, Greece, the Middle East, and North Africa—exerted its allure on the Western artist’s imagination centuries prior to the turn of the nineteenth century.” Jennifer Meagher, Dept. of European Paintings, The Metropolitan Museum of Art The cover alone appeals to the unrepentant Orientalist in me. I’m fascinated by the archaeology and exploration of…

REVIEW: MIDNIGHT IN PEKING by Paul French

I noted when I first read this, and I still find it true:  This is the best true crime book I have read since The Devil in the White City.  Paul French painstakingly recreates not only the last days of Pamela Werner, but a crumbling China.  Like the Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago, Peking…

REVIEW: THE ORACLE OF STAMBOUL by Michael David Lukas

I desperately wanted to love this book.  As a self-proclaimed Orientalist, I sought to be swept away by the magic of the Black Sea and the secrets of the Bosporus.  I was hoping to find a bit of myself in the young protagonist — an innocent, with a nagging sense of urgency about the disappearing culture…