<![CDATA[Dreamers of the Day (Paperback)]]>

false <![CDATA[Dreamers of the Day (Paperback)]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1230179665m/6036819.jpg 1276938 7 “I suppose I ought to warn you at the outset that my present circumstances are puzzling, even to me. Nevertheless, I am sure of this much: My little story has become your history. You won’t really understand your times until you understand mine.” So begins the account of Agnes Shanklin, the charmingly diffident narrator of Mary Doria Russell’s compelling new novel, Dreamers of the Day. And what is Miss Shanklin’s “little story?” Nothing less than the creation of the modern Middle East at the 1921 Cairo Peace Conference, where Winston Churchill, T. E. Lawrence, and Lady Gertrude Bell met to decide the fate of the Arab world–and of our own. A forty-year-old schoolteacher from Ohio still reeling from the tragedies of the Great War and the influenza epidemic, Agnes has come into a modest inheritance that allows her to take the trip of a lifetime to Egypt and the Holy Land. Arriving at the Semiramis Hotel just as the Peace Conference convenes, Agnes, with her plainspoken American opinions–and a small, noisy dachshund named Rosie–enters into the company of the historic luminaries who will, in the space of a few days at a hotel in Cairo, invent the nations of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan. Neither a pawn nor a participant at the conference, Agnes is ostensibly insignificant, and that makes her a welcome sounding board for Churchill, Lawrence, and Bell. It also makes her unexpectedly attractive to the charismatic German spy Karl Weilbacher. As Agnes observes the tumultuous inner workings of nation-building, she is drawn more and more deeply into geopolitical intrigue and toward a personal awakening. With prose as graceful and effortless as a seductive float down the Nile, Mary Doria Russell illuminates the long, rich history of the Middle East with a story that brilliantly elucidates today’s headlines. As enlightening as it is entertaining, Dreamers of the Day is a memorable, passionate, gorgeously written novel. 3257102 11 3 2008 Dreamers of the Day: A Novel total:697|5:96|4:267|3:232|2:88|1:14| 697 2434 1189 285 4 6 false false Fri Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Jan 27 11:09:58 -0800 2008 Sat Feb 09 20:39:54 -0800 2008 Dreamers of the Day is a historical novel set mostly in Egypt during the Cairo Peace Conference of 1921. Agnes Shanklin is a forty-year-old, unmarried, Ohio schoolteacher who has lived through the Great War (WWI) and the Great Influenza of 1919. Having lost her family and inherited a great fortune, ...more...]]> 2 5 false false Wed Apr 16 06:52:42 -0700 2008 Thu Mar 27 09:12:00 -0700 2008 Wed Apr 02 18:04:57 -0700 2008
This book, however, was sorely disappointing...more...]]> 3 3 false false Sun Feb 10 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Feb 06 09:34:51 -0800 2008 Thu Mar 27 07:29:44 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 2 false false Sun Nov 02 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Oct 29 05:53:56 -0700 2008 Thu Nov 20 16:22:31 -0800 2008
There she encounters various movers and shakers, such as Winston Churchill and Lawrence of Arabia, in the midst of forming the history and geograph...more...]]> 4 2 false false Sat Dec 20 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Dec 21 09:11:27 -0800 2008 Sun Dec 21 09:25:09 -0800 2008
The narrator is an engaging character, a...more...]]> 0 2 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 19 08:11:17 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 19 08:11:37 -0800 2009 4 1 false false Thu May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Nov 12 03:36:44 -0800 2008 Wed Nov 12 03:54:01 -0800 2008 In Dreamers of the Day Mary Doria Russell gives us the story of Agnes Shanklin, observer and unlikely participant in the 1921 Cairo Peace Conference which saw the modern Middle East take shape. If it is possible to pinpoint a moment in time from which to explain the conflicts now raging in the Middl...

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The story is set against the backdrop of the Peace Conference in Egypt followin...more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Apr 07 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Mar 07 22:42:45 -0800 2009 Sat Mar 07 22:42:45 -0800 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Dec 28 22:45:35 -0800 2008 Thu Jan 01 08:54:35 -0800 2009 The Sparrow (which I hear will be made into a movie) and especially loved Children of God both by MDRussell and a friend loved A Thread of Grace .

Not being a writer, I of course, will start the review out with a blatant chiche. I couldn't see the forest for the trees! What c...more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Jan 30 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 29 06:06:45 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 30 05:51:08 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 06 23:11:23 -0700 2009 Wed Aug 12 14:51:59 -0700 2009
"All men dream but not equally.
Those who dream by night wake in the day to find that it was vanity.
But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men,
For they may act their dreams"

T...more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Dec 13 13:06:27 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 22 08:55:31 -0800 2008 more...]]> 2 0 false false Sun Mar 15 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Mar 08 11:06:16 -0700 2009 Tue Mar 17 12:22:06 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 1 false false Thu Feb 19 05:57:44 -0800 2009 Tue Mar 04 14:21:45 -0800 2008 Thu Feb 19 05:57:44 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Mar 05 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Feb 22 13:18:19 -0800 2009 Thu Mar 05 16:35:33 -0800 2009 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=6036819