LEIGH FORBES: Books of all Sorts

30th April 2019
by Leigh Forbes
Comments Off on The Translator: a tribesman’s memoir of Darfur

The Translator: a tribesman’s memoir of Darfur

by Daoud Hari. A chilling first-hand account of the Darfur genocide wreaked by the Sudanese government in 2003. But coincidence, Sudan’s President, Omar al-Bashir, was finally ousted as I was reading this book in 2019, news which did much to … Continue reading

12th January 2019
by Leigh Forbes
Comments Off on The Secret Teacher: dispatches from the classroom

The Secret Teacher: dispatches from the classroom

by The Secret Teacher. The Secret Teacher is just starting out in an English secondary school. He is optimistic, and idealistic, characteristics that would be damped by most jobs in time; but he is quickly put in his place by … Continue reading

5th October 2018
by Leigh Forbes
Comments Off on Histories of Nations: How Their Identities Were Forged

Histories of Nations: How Their Identities Were Forged

by Peter Furtado. A “History of the Political Revisionist Histories of Nations” would be a more accurate title for this book, which comprises a selection of essays, written by natives of each country, on some (necessarily limited) aspect of their … Continue reading

3rd June 2017
by Leigh Forbes
Comments Off on The Badass Librarians of Timbuktu

The Badass Librarians of Timbuktu

by Joshua Hammer. The Bad Ass Librarians of Timbuktu tells two stories: one about thousands of ancient manuscripts – on such subjects as history, science, Islamic law, conflict resolution, and poetry – and the librarians who sought to first preserve, then … Continue reading