The Middle East By Bernard Lewis. The main part of the book covers the period from the rise of Islam to the 19th century Ottoman empire. Apart from bits and pieces I’ve , my knowledge of this comes from Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, not the most modern source and told from the other side. So there’s a lot here that’s new to me.

Like just about everyone else, I went, with my son, to The Two Towers. The films are doing quite a good job, staying faithful to the original without some of the longeurs of, for example, Tom Bombadil.