This book takes readers through a forgotten era of what is now the largest war zone in the Middle East. Because American friends find in his boyhood stories an Iraq they hadn't imagined, Balian feels there's a place for a book that gives insight into how Iraqis lived and behaved under normal conditions, in a pro-Western Iraq before Saddam Hussein. The reader pieces together the Iraqi culture through charming family accounts structured around a series of different points of interest. Chapters are named after different categories in Balian's memory bank: "Baghdad," "The River," "Iraqis,"...

Rocambole is a mystery adventure epic by the French author, Pierre Alexis Ponson du Terrail (1829 - 1871). It is the story of an adventurer and criminal who started life on the wrong side of the law, redeemed himself, and then devoted his life to doing good. The Rocambole saga has been acknowledged for transitioning the old-fashioned gothic novel to modern heroic fiction thus starting the genres of adventure crime fiction novels. Before there was a Sherlock Holmes, Scarlet Pimpernel, Hercule Poirot, the Saint, Arsene Lupin, and James Bond, there was Rocambole. The stories take the reader back...

This is the second book of the only English adaptation of the Rocambole saga by the French author Ponson du Terrail. The first book dealt with Rocambole's dark side, which ultimately led to his capture and imprisonment. Volume 2 starts with a redeemed Rocambole escaping the hard labor prison in Toulon, France, with a nucleus of devoted followers who will help him fight evil and injustice. His network of followers increases when he is chosen to lead a gang of Parisian thieves. Among them is the young Marmouset, who becomes Rocambole's protege. Rocambole converts the thieves into a patriotic...

This is the third and last volume of the Rocambole Saga. It starts while Rocambole is in India and entrusts his protege, Marmouset, to protect a boy whose father, Marquis de Maurevers, had mysteriously disappeared. This led Marmouset into a dangerous battle of wits with a ruthless and vengeful woman known as the Beautiful Gardener. Rocambole returned to France just in time to save Marmouset but soon after found himself involved in the Irish Rebellion in neighboring England. It started with trying to help a poor mother find her kidnapped son only to discover that the boy was an important...