Beyond the Book: Background information when reading The Orientalist

Summary |  Excerpt |  Reading Guide |  Reviews |  Beyond the Book |  Read-Alikes |  Genres & Themes |  Author Bio

The Orientalist

Solving The Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life

by Tom Reiss

The Orientalist by Tom Reiss X
The Orientalist by Tom Reiss
  • Critics' Opinion:

    Readers' Opinion:

  • First Published:
    Feb 2005, 464 pages

    Paperback:
    Mar 2006, 480 pages

    Genres

  • Rate this book


Book Reviewed by:
BookBrowse Review Team
Buy This Book

About this Book

Beyond the Book

This article relates to The Orientalist

Print Review

The story of Lev Nussimbaum's life starts in Baku, the capital of Azeraijan at the turn of the 20th century.

Thanks to the joys of the internet you too can travel to Baku by browsing the local English language newspaper, the Baku Sun, which includes a guide to the city and even what's on the TV today. Isn't the web a wonderful thing! 

Ali and Nino (1938) and The Girl From The Golden Horn  (1939) by Said Kurban (aka Lev Nussimbaum) are both available at Amazon. Writing as Essad Bey, Naussimbaum is also believed to be the author of Blood and Oil in the Orient (1929), Stalin, the Career of a Fanatic (1931), and various other titles.

Interesting Fact from the Q&A with the author
Hitler's first press secretary, Putzi Hanfstangl, was a Harvard man (class of '04). In his memoirs, he describes how Hitler would go wild with excitement when he played the football marches and recounted the hysteria that the pep rallies could whip up in the stadium. Putzi claims that the Nazi's "Sieg Heil!" was inspired by Harvard's "Fight Harvard! Fight! Fight! Fight!" chant.  (more)

Filed under

This article relates to The Orientalist. It first ran in the March 20, 2006 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.

This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access become a member today.
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Sale!

Join BookBrowse and discover exceptional books for just $3/mth!

Find out more


Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Wifedom
    Wifedom
    by Anna Funder
    When life became overwhelming for writer, wife, and mother Anna Funder in the summer of 2017, she ...
  • Book Jacket: The Fraud
    The Fraud
    by Zadie Smith
    In a recent article for The New Yorker, Zadie Smith joked that she moved away from London, her ...
  • Book Jacket: Wasteland
    Wasteland
    by Oliver Franklin-Wallis
    Globally, we generate more than 2 billion tons of household waste every year. That annual total ...
  • Book Jacket: Disobedient
    Disobedient
    by Elizabeth Fremantle
    Born in Rome in 1593, Artemisia Gentileschi led a successful career as an artist throughout the ...

Book Club Discussion

Book Jacket
Fair Rosaline
by Natasha Solomons
A subversive, powerful untelling of Romeo and Juliet by New York Times bestselling author Natasha Solomons.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Digging Stars
    by Novuyo Rosa Tshuma

    Blending drama and satire, Digging Stars probes the emotional universes of love, friendship, family, and nationhood.

  • Book Jacket

    The September House
    by Carissa Orlando

    A dream home becomes a haunted nightmare in this compulsively readable, twisty, and layered debut novel.

Win This Book
Win Moscow X

25 Copies to Give Away!

A daring CIA operation threatens chaos in the Kremlin. But can Langley trust the Russian at its center?

Enter

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

A M I A Terrible T T W

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.