ST McNeil » Book Reviews

Category Archive: Book Reviews

24 Oct

Lion of the Desert

Slasher-flick innovator Moustapha Akkad had bad timing. The creator of the Halloween series and the Prophet’s bioepic The Messenger, the Syrian-American dreamed big in Hollywood of …

By ST McNeil
Also posted in Africa, Africa North
Tagged Anthony Quinn, fascism, film, Gaddafi, Libya, Mustafa Akkad
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29 Jun

Thebes At War

Naguib Mahfouz´s Thebes At War reads like watching Ridley Scott directing John Wayne´s jihad against the infidel invaders. Set during the Hyksos two-hundred year occupation of …

By ST McNeil
Tagged Ahmose, Ancient Egypt, Egypt, Egyptian nationalism, Hyksos, Naguib Mahfouz, Nile Valley, Thebes At War
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23 Jun

City Gates

Quiet fire in blue sky by Samia A. Halaby It is the story of a city, and thus a people, torn by violence from sanity. “And they …

By ST McNeil
Tagged City Gates, Elias Khoury, Ken Kesey, Sometimes A Great Notion, Still-life With Woodpecker, Tom Robbins
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15 Jun

The Barbary Wars and Khasserine Pass

Where is Tunisia? That’s what I read in many people’s eyes before I came here. I would have the same look about most of Canada, the …

By ST McNeil
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15 Jun

Sometimes A Great Notion

I nearly made a grave mistake. Ken Kesey was taking his time, and I didn’t want to wade through crap to find the pony. Life …

By ST McNeil
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15 Apr

Liberalization Against Democracy

Democratization. Fourteen Roman characters that imply leaping from the ashes of disparity into equality. From servitude to ownership. Evolution, in our shared vernacular, towards a …

By ST McNeil
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02 Apr

The Painter of Battles

Reflection, the act of remembering and judging the past to inform the present, is human nature. With gray hair and wrinkles, we scrutinize our lives …

By ST McNeil
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30 Mar

The Sheltering Sky

More violent than expected, The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles cuts across the mind and conscience, spilling unrecognizable blood. The telling hurts, but where? It’s …

By ST McNeil
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06 Feb

The Conquest of the Sahara

“Perhaps tomorrow man will be able to influence the climate and the rain, he will utilize solar heat industrially, by ways impossible to foresee he …

By ST McNeil
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27 Sep

A History of Modern Palestine

Ilan Pappe wrote “A History of Modern Palestine” as a historical narrative devoid of political ideologies, necessitated because “the conventional history of Palestine and Israel …

By ST McNeil
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