Balthasars Odyssey

Download or read book Balthasar's Odyssey written by Amin Maalouf and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-12-31 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are ninety-nine names for God in the Koran, is it possible that there is a secret one-hundredth name? In this tale of magic and mystery, of love and danger, Balthasar's ultimate quest is to find the secret that could save the world. Before the dawn of the apocalyptic 'Year of the Beast' in 1666, Balthasar Embriaco, a Genoese Levantine merchant, sets out on an adventure that will take him across the breadth of the civilised world, from Constantinople, through the Mediterranean, to London shortly before the Great Fire. Balthasar's urgent quest is to track down a copy of one of the rarest and most coveted books ever printed, a volume called 'The Hundredth Name', its contents are thought to be of vital importance to the future of the world. There are ninety-nine names for God in the Koran, and merely to know this most secret hundredth name will, Balthasar believes, ensure his salvation.

Download or read book Leo Africanus written by Amin Maalouf and published by New Amsterdam Books. This book was released on 1998-03-25 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "I, Hasan the son of Muhammad the weigh-master, I, Jean-Leon de Medici, circumcised at the hand of a barber and baptized at the hand of a pope, I am now called the African, but I am not from Africa, nor from Europe, nor from Arabia. I am also called the Granadan, the Fassi, the Zayyati, but I come from no country, from no city, no tribe. I am the son of the road, my country is the caravan, my life the most unexpected of voyages." Thus wrote Leo Africanus, in his fortieth year, in this imaginary autobiography of the famous geographer, adventurer, and scholar Hasan al-Wazzan, who was born in Granada in 1488. His family fled the Inquisition and took him to the city of Fez, in North Africa. Hasan became an itinerant merchant, and made many journeys to the East, journeys rich in adventure and observation. He was captured by a Sicilian pirate and taken back to Rome as a gift to Pope Leo X, who baptized him Johannes Leo. While in Rome, he wrote the first trilingual dictionary (Latin, Arabic and Hebrew), as well as his celebrated Description of Africa, for which he is still remembered as Leo Africanus.

Download or read book The Rock of Tanios written by Amin Maalouf and published by George Braziller. This book was released on 1994 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the 19th Century, a sheik's son is forced to flee Lebanon because of a power struggle. He finds refuge in Cyprus and plots against his enemies with the aid of the French and the British. A tale of palace intrigues by the author of Leo Africanus.

Download or read book The Gardens Of Light written by Amin Maalouf and published by Abacus. This book was released on 2012-04-19 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Born in a Mesopotamian village in the third century, the son of a Parthian warrior, Mani grows up in a volatile and dangerous world. As battle rages for control over the Middle East between the great Roman and Persian empires, as Jews and Christians, Buddhists and Zoroastrians fight for ascendency, Mani- painter, mystic, physician and prophet- makes his way through the battlefields to preach to his incandescent doctrine of humility, tolerance and love, a doctrine that comes to be known as Manicheanism. A vivid glimpse of the ancient world in all its perfumed splendour and cruelty, an elegantly philosophical discourse on the fall of man, THE GARDENS OF LIGHT is a story of great beauty and resonance, exquisitely told.

Download or read book Disordered World written by Amin Maalouf and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2012-01-01 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dazzling and ultimately hopeful exploration and analysis of our disordered and volatile post-9/11 world by one of the leading international writers and thinkers of our times.

Download or read book Gardener to the King written by Frédéric Richaud and published by Arcade Publishing. This book was released on 2000 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "As gardener to His Majesty, Jean-Baptiste de La Quintinie is master of his own domain, the royal fruit and vegetable garden. Louis' generals might proclaim the power of France abroad, but La Quintine's espaliers and vegetable plots assert nothing less than man's mastery over nature; a garden that can feed a thousand at a sitting, standards of pruning that in three hundred years have never been surpassed."--Jacket.

Download or read book The Iliad of Homer written by Homer and published by . This book was released on 1914 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: