I ran a poll on what my most obscure book review was. The results were:
- Works Along the Way (notable Icelandic architecture in concrete) (67%, 8 Votes)
- Coherent Stress Testing: A Bayesian Approach to the Analysis of Financial Stress (25%, 3 Votes)
- 17 reviews of books translated from the Hungarian (collectively) (0%, 0 Votes)
- Insects and Human Life (human use of insects in Malawi) (0%, 0 Votes)
- The Gamelan Digul and the Prison Camp Musician Who Built It (8%, 0 Votes)
How could you possibly have left out: "The Cockroach Papers: A Compendium of History and Lore"?
http://dannyreviews.com/h/Bridges_Law_Power.html Medieval bridges surely deserves a mention, although I am biased because a friend of mine wrote it. Stress testing is actually quite important, Hungarian is a real language, Malawi is a real county and the Gamelan sounds interesting. Of the five above I'm voting for Icelandic architecture, but if I could I'd vote bridges.
Votes for The Cockroach Papers and Bridges, Law, and Power in Medieval England noted. Is Iceland less real than Malawi? It may have been an over-leveraged hedge fund for a few years, but it seems to have put that behind it.
When you were going to the Afghanistan/Pakistan and I think Hindu Kush area several years ago, before the present wars, I thought the books reviewed before your journey were fairly obscure but it was a region that fascinated me and I read them with much interest. It is the change in obscurity that fascinates me: now no-one might call them obscure.
Margaret, I'm actually reading Barfield's new history of Afghanistan at the moment and that is bringing back memories of visiting Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (I don't think I actually entered Afghanistan, but I was right on the border at the Boroghil Pass). I'd quite like to visit Chitral again and watch another polo game and admire Tirich Mir. I hope some kind of peace comes to the region.
What you say about the region no longer being obscure is spot on. A torrent of books on Afghanistan and Pakistan has appeared in the last decade!