I feel lucky to have come across Maalouf's book. There's nothing pedantic about this great adventure story in which the stakes are high and the characters are larger than life. His exciting narrative clearly tells a story covering couple of centuries of cataclysmic events in a way that is easy to understand despite the enormous cast of characters, who each had different motives for their actions. There are battles, sieges, assassinations, and political intrigue swirling around the region we know today as the Middle East. It was not a contest for domination between two groups, but among many: Arabs, Turks, the Catholic West, the Orthodox East, and the Mongol hordes!
Amin Maalouf is a good French-Lebanese writer.

Read by Amin Maalouf.