Kevin B

At the beginning of The Taliban Shuffle, the dedication reads: "To the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan, who are still waiting for the punchline." This sums up the tone of Kim Barker's excellent nonfiction book. Covering her adventures in Pakistan and Afghanistan as a foreign reporter for The Chicago Tribune, The Taliban Shuffle is a sardonic, satirical piece of long-form journalism, tinged with bitterness. Lacking much by way of an overriding narrative, the book instead

If you can accept the thesis that the history of ancient Egypt is the history of a small, narrowly concentrated group of elites brutally exercising their power over a whipped, starved, and constantly downtrodden populace, and can also accept Wilkinson's occasional overstatement of it, then you will find The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egyptian not only a satisfying and comprehensive survey on ancient Egypt but also a narrative tour de force dramatically following the deeds and misdeeds of t