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45 Works 1,474 Members 30 Reviews

About the Author

Historian and writer Michael Haag has written widely on the Egyptian, Classical, and Medieval worlds. He is the author of The Templars: The History the Myth and Alexandria: City of Memory, a definitive study of Cavafy, Forster, and Lawrence Durrell in the city, as well as travel guides to Syria, show more Lebanon, and Egypt. He lives in London. show less

Works by Michael Haag

Inferno / Inferno Decoded (2013) — Contributor — 161 copies
The Durrells of Corfu (2017) 139 copies
Alexandria: City of Memory (2004) 42 copies
Egypt (1985) 31 copies
Alexandria (1993) 20 copies
Inferno Decoded (2013) 16 copies
Cairo, Luxor, Aswan (2000) 15 copies
Cairo Illustrated (2006) 14 copies
Syria & Lebanon (1995) 10 copies
Guide to Greece (1978) 5 copies
Discovery Guide to Egypt (1995) 4 copies
Guide to West Africa (1986) 4 copies
Guide to Egypt (1981) 2 copies
Alexandria 1 copy
Durrellowie z Korfu (2018) 1 copy
Guide to Egypt (1987) 1 copy

Tagged

Common Knowledge

Birthdate
1943
Gender
male
Nationality
UK
Country (for map)
United Kingdom
Places of residence
London, England, UK
Occupations
author
historian

Members

Reviews

Despite the name, this book is more a history of the events leading to the Crusades and the fighting in Palestine than about the Templars. It does however go past the last Crusade and describes the end of the Templar Order. The author seems to discontented with the conclusions he arrives at and, to me, ends the book in the middle of the last paragraph. I turned the page expecting more and found the End Notes.
 
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jonmortensen | 2 other reviews | May 20, 2023 |
Pretty good digest of all things Templar. Covers not just the Holy Land stuff but Spain and Portugal as well as the Order’s role as financiers and bankers.

Debunks all the usual rubbish related to conspiracy theories, freemasonry, Mormons, etc. Has a perticular scorn for [a:Dan Brown|630|Dan Brown|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1399396714p2/630.jpg] and points out how unoriginal the novel [b:The Da Vinci Code|10452159|The Da Vinci Code|Dan Brown|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|2982101] really is.

Good reference for films, novels, further reading, places, etc.

Haag is sympathetic to the Western causes and the Knights’ themselves and points out the intolerance and rapaciousness of both the Muslims and Christians. As usual the Jews get screwed by everybody.
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Gumbywan | 9 other reviews | Jun 24, 2022 |
Well, that was quite a day…

I enjoyed this book, it was a good fun read. It does have its faults, but if you’re not after literary greatness, tight-plotting, polished prose and well-rounded characters, or can forgive the fact that this book has none of those things, then it works quite well.

I read The Da Vinci Code some time ago and really enjoyed it (it helped having the illustrated version for quick referencing). It was entertaining and fun. I expected nothing less from this offering, which after only a few chapters promised me exactly the same kind of thing, in terms of characters, plot development and pacing. Although this worked for the book, this is one of my criticisms. The formula is too much like his other stuff. There is no change from what goes on in his other book. However, the formula seems to work and this book is just as quick paced and entertaining. It kept me reading.

The story itself was intriguing. I liked all the references to Dante and how the writing and artwork was used as clues throughout the story. I have never read The Divine Comedy, but I will do now. The story also brought up some very interesting topical issues that got me thinking. The story has been cleverly constructed and there is no doubt that a lot of research has been put into it.

This book is purely plot-based and as a result the characters are not particularly well-developed. I struggled to find a personality to any of them and as a result found it difficult to sympathise with anyone. Langdon is the same person as he was in the Da Vinci Code, which bothered me a little, although it would make it easier to pick this book up without having read any of the others. The other characters seemed to be re-hashed versions of the ones in his previous book.

The book is over-written and could easily have been made at least 100 pages shorter. Dan Brown has done an excellent job of describing all the settings and artworks in the book, which makes it part travel-guide and detracts a little from the story. Maybe he didn’t think of writing a separate accompanying book with all this in for those who are interested (he really should write a guide book in my opinion). A lot of historical detail is given in chunks of dialogue, which slows down the otherwise hectic pace and seems a little unrealistic given the circumstances.

As many have pointed out, there are a few issues with the writing, much of which could have been sorted out with careful editing. There is quite a lot of scene repetition. This frequently occurs at the start of chapters, where previous scenes are summarised. There are a lot of ‘long moments’, ‘wry smiles’ and ‘subterranean caverns’ (as opposed to caverns above ground, presumably). And also the most awkward description of a spiral I have ever come across.

I probably won’t read another Robert Langdon book, but this is mainly to do with the formula that seems to be non-changing throughout the series. But I’d recommend it to anyone who likes a bit of adventure.
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Triduana | 5 other reviews | Jan 25, 2022 |
{stand alone, non-fiction, biography}(2017)

I remember that I liked My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell when we read it decades ago in school but I don't remember much more than the ambiance of a sun-drenched childhood that resonated with mine and I haven't seen the recent television adaptation. I like discovering the real story behind the 'story' and took a book bullet for this book.

My Family and Other Animals described the time, just before WWII broke out, that Gerald and his family moved from England to Corfu for a couple of years when he - the youngest of the family - was 10 years old. Apparently Prospero's Cell by Lawrence Durrell, his oldest brother who was then 23 years old and married, is about the same time period but told from his perspective and (I get the impression that) both stories have differences and embellishments. Haag (the foreword says that he knew Lawrence and had met Gerald and Margo) has put together this account, accompanied by photos supplied by the family, of what actually happened before the family had to move back to England as the second world war broke out.

Gerald's narrative was written (when he was an adult) from the perspective of the boy he had been and he omitted, glossed over or embellished some things (and, apparently, Lawrence did something similar) one of which was the reason for the move to Corfu and another was the reason that there was no father around. The reason was that Lawrence Durrell senior (called, irritatingly troughout the first part of the book - after which he was never mentioned - Lawrence Samuel even though his son, Lawrence George, was called Larry throughout the book) had died in India when Gerald was a baby so the family moved to England (although both Louisa and Lawrence senior had been born in India as had all their children) where they didn't really settle down.

The first part of the book, dealing with Lawrence and Louisa's early years of marriage and life moving around India (before the division of the country), was interesting and entertaining as was the move to England and then to Corfu but as the book goes on it gets somewhat disjointed. There were a lot of interesting details but they weren't always connected to each other. Haag includes lots of quotes from many sources; from Gerald's and Larry's books (I infer), Gerald's unpublished jottings, from their sister Margo (who also wrote a book), from cousins, friends, acquaintances ... Unfortunately, he doesn't say where many of the quotes are from, who he is quoting (I assume one of the siblings) or mark where the quote starts or ends which makes it quite confusing.

Towards the end of the book it gets more haphazard and didn't flow well for me; it reads more like a string of explanations of anecdotes, some of which are just passages plonked down on the page with seemingly no connection to anything else. Gerald's first wife appears as a fait accompli with no introduction or explanation but at least she gets a half sentence when she leaves the story. By the end of it, it felt more like I was reading Haag's research notes and it was a bit dry; it was as though the author did a good job of researching it and got the first part in decent shape but then ...

This is a fairly short book but wasn't a quick read for me as the ending bogged down rather. I feel that reading it as an e-book did it further disservice as captions to photographs showed up on the next page and there were a lot of spaces after illustrations which looked like the end of chapters (of which there are only eight plus an epilogue); if you do decide to read it a physical copy would probably work better. Do be warned; Larry and friends liked to sea and sun bathe naked and there are a couple of photographs in the book. I suspect that this book would probably work better as a companion book with one of the brothers' Corfu novels (Gerald eventually wrote three, dubbed The Corfu Trilogy) or the TV adaptation fresh in mind but I don't feel that it stands well by itself.

November 2021
3 stars
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humouress | 8 other reviews | Nov 18, 2021 |

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Statistics

Works
45
Members
1,474
Popularity
#17,429
Rating
½ 3.7
Reviews
30
ISBNs
111
Languages
11

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