100 books like Libyan Sands

Saint-Exupery’s descriptions of what he sees and feels during enthralling activities amid stunning landscapes left me enchanted. The feelings he captures extend beyond the mere act of flying and into human relationships and our quest for meaning, written in beautiful, often philosophical prose. He approached flying as a metaphor for life and the human condition. Even if I will never fly, he made me care. 

I love Michael Ondaatje’s prose; that is reason enough to read this book, but the Booker Prize-winning novel is also filled with mystery. Set in an Italian villa–the Villa San Girolamo, a real place–which is being used as a field hospital at the end of the Second World War and with a small cast of characters, it resembles a classic mystery story, but this is far more.

Each character’s history is gradually revealed to the reader, focusing on the "English Patient," a man burned and bandaged beyond recognition and unable to recall who he is, but whose memory returns to him in sporadic bursts when he is read to from his copy of Herodotus.

In this narrative, the stories of the other characters are wound with consummate skill as we learn how the English Patient came there. A novel about memory, love, and the desire for survival, its central image… show more.

This book might be one of my favorite books. Grann’s riveting narrative immerses readers in the Amazon rainforest, where British explorer Percy Fawcett embarked on his ill-fated quest to uncover a mythical city.

The gripping tale delves into the depths of the unknown and the perils of uncharted wilderness, illuminating the human desire for discovery and the mysteries that lie beyond.

Reading it many years ago amidst the grandeur of Colca Canyon in Peru left an indelible mark in my memory, underscoring the book’s resonance with grandiose landscapes and the enduring spirit of exploration.

Khan al-Khalili is a famous bazaar in the historic heart of Cairo, and the setting of this powerful and thought-provoking novel by Naguib Mahfouz. One of the most important Egyptian and Arab authors of the Twentieth century, in 1988, Mahfouz became the first Arabic-language writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Mahfouz spent much of his life in and around Khan al-Khalili, which gives this novel an intimacy and sense of place akin to Dicken's writing about Victorian London. It is 1942, and Egypt is tense as the war moves closer and closer to the capital, and Cairenes from different generations thrust together in the crowded neighborhood variously argue for and against tradition, modernity, religious faith, and secularism. This is a great read, and even better if you’re able to read it while sitting in a café in Khan al-Khalili. 

Cairo in the War, 1939–1945 is a brilliant, fast-moving, narrative-driven piece of historical writing focussed on the British ruling elite in Egypt, before they won the war and subsequently lost this once vital North African imperial land-holding. The cast of characters reads like a Who’s Who of mid-century literary heavyweights, political operators, and military strategists, including everyone from Lawrence Durrell (whose Alexandria Quartet is also set in this period), Evelyn Waugh, Fitzroy Maclean, Olivia Manning, the brilliant Alexandrian Greek poet C.P. Cavafy, and Paddy Leigh Fermor. While much of the rest of the world burned, the British elite in Cairo partied, and in the process managed to annoy many American, Australian, and New Zealand allies and Egyptian foes alike, while sowing the seeds of an anti-monarchical feeling that eventually saw King Farouk toppled in 1952.

Ernest Shackleton is now best known for the heroic failure that was his Endurance Expedition of 1914-17. But the skills that he displayed to such effect on that expedition were honed during his leadership of the British Antarctic (or Nimrod) Expedition of 1907-09 – an expedition with the conquest of the South Pole as its primary objective. Of course, in the final assessment, this expedition failed as well – because Shackleton turned for home when just 97.5 nautical miles from his objective, knowing that his team would die if he didn’t. Beau Riffenburgh’s account of this much less well-known expedition is masterly: meticulously researched and beautifully written; a joy to read. 

This book doesn’t tell the story of one expedition, it recounts many, launched by men of nine different nationalities, all intent on breaking into the closed world of Tibet. I am not alone in considering Hopkirk to be one of the great masters of what might be described as ‘historical travel’ books, and this is surely one of his best. Populated by a wonderful cast of characters, all determined to be the first westerner to reach the sacred, and forbidden, city of Lhasa. I can’t recommend it highly enough – and, enjoy one of Hopkirk’s books, and you’ll enjoy them all.  

I had this book beside me while recovering from an urgent hip replacement. A guy who walked solo from Herat to Kabul in the winter of Afghanistan can be a great aid when you struggle in the stairwell.

Stewart–a former MP and nowadays the host of The Rest is Politics podcast–did the job for me in his excellent book and brave walk. A few months after my operation, I hiked the Mont Blanc trail. It's nothing like Afghanistan, but I did come across some icy peaks.

One aspect of this book which appeals is that whilst most of the LRDG Patrols were drawn from the New Zealanders, South Africans & Rhodesians, whose civvy lives in the outdoors naturally fitted them for the rigours of desert warfare and who embodied a fair level of independence of spirt, the Guards represent the very epitome of elitism, spit & polish and rigid hierarchies that you’d expect of the most conventional of conventional forces. Yet they achieved great success within the altogether unconventional ranks of LRDG.

Examining automobiles people buy offers, if not a window into their soul, then a peek into their personal values. Ingrassia, a Wall Street Journal automotive reporter, guides us down a freeway of history and consumerism that “begat the middle class, the suburbs, shopping malls, McDonald's, Taco Bell, drive-through banking and other things.” He traces our romance with tires, horsepower, and wood-trimmed interiors through 15 models ranging from the Model T to the Prius. As stories of the Corvette, Jeep, GTO, VW Beetle and VWMicrobus, the unfairly maligned Chevy Corvair, and others roll by, Ingrassia integrates how each successive model forever changed customer desires and the often-cramped minds of auto executives. His cruise-control writing style rewards us with a smooth journey among the cars of our dreams.