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"This is a story in simple, geometric shapes and the bold colors of a child's box of crayons"

Tying threads of three key players in WWI Arabia, this book opens up large movements in history by dissecting small turns. I found it exhilerating to coonect tugs of war in Europe, Arabia, and in the basic truths of personality and personal ambitions that shape events.

Having a hard time getting pulled in to this one, but I am reading it alongside similar historical accounts...

Fills in so many historical gaps, linking events through folllowing the tracks of key players

this book is like an opem window letting in soms fresh air...though the air is old, it is read fresh agsinst the background of today

Reading in conjunction with Gertrude Bell's letters and her role in the formation of Iraq. This view of history, so far, is deeply exciting.

This is quite a find. Bell's perspectives on the alliances and rifts between groups in Arabia are like an old map that lay just under the new. The ground we still walk on.

Brilliant. Imperfect. Awkward. Sublime. Like nothing else

It took me a few pages but I am now quite drawn in. This is a delicate but urgent story - excited to continue

Terrifically interesting so far. Great compliment to the history of the region at this time (as well as before, and after the "liberal age").

Gulping down history to write my piece on Gertrude Bell; workshop production in Minneapolis this February. In English, with some Arabic and French. Music by the Wilhelm Brothers.

Not sure I can keep on with this in novel form. I would enjoy the cheeky, almost smug tone on screen but to spend my time with pages I need an author voice more willing to acknowledge and dig at the unknowns.

Brilliant, awkward, emotionally revolutionary...not done yet...