Matthew Leeming
Jewels and Giardia
The Gem Hunter: True Adventures of an American in Afghanistan
By Gary W Bowersox
Geo-Vision Inc 476pp $29.95
Not many of the tourists who go to see the Crown Jewels in the Tower realise that two of the most magnificent stones are from Afghanistan, the Black Prince’s Ruby and the Timur Ruby. Henry V wore the two-inch-long Black Prince’s Ruby on his helmet at Agincourt. It is now the centrepiece of the Imperial State Crown. The Timur Ruby is even larger and carved with the name of Tamerlane and five of its other keepers. Both almost certainly came from a mine in the Pamirs first described by Marco Polo, in one of the most inaccessible parts of Afghanistan. Gary Bowersox employed old maps and his considerable courage to rediscover it, trekking with horses up the rocky Oxus Valley and across passes christened, by the Danish expedition that first mapped them, Devil’s Pass One, Two and Three.
Too often travel writers confect exquisite experiences out of very little, but Bowersox has, if anything, too much experience to fit easily into a book. He has been travelling in Afghanistan, where he is a well-known figure, for thirty-five years. He served in the US Army during the Vietnam War and is large, tough, generous and unassuming. I first met him in 2001.
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Knowledge of Sufism increased markedly with the publication in 1964 of The Sufis, by Idries Shah. Nowadays his writings, much like his father’s, are dismissed for their Orientalism and inaccuracy.
@fitzmorrissey investigates who the Shahs really were.
Fitzroy Morrissey - Sufism Goes West
Fitzroy Morrissey: Sufism Goes West - Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah by Nile Green
literaryreview.co.uk
Rats have plagued cities for centuries. But in Baltimore, researchers alighted on one surprising solution to the problem of rat infestation: more rats.
@WillWiles looks at what lessons can be learned from rat ecosystems – for both rats and humans.
Will Wiles - Puss Gets the Boot
Will Wiles: Puss Gets the Boot - Rat City: Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Twisters features destructive tempests and blockbuster action sequences.
@JonathanRomney asks what the real danger is in Lee Isaac Chung's disaster movie.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/eyes-of-the-storm