Odd Bits
A Love Letter to Independent Bookstores
I’ve never seldom, met a bookstore (or book-selling venue) I didn’t like. I will happily browse through a big box store, a used bookstore, or the odd shelf of books in a flea market stall. In a strange town or foreign city, a bookstore visit will always make me happy, even if most of…
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Corsets and Codpieces
In my last blog post, I made this off-hand comment: “If you’re looking for a pop culture book on the history of fashion, Ottoman Dress and Design in the West is not your book.” Several of you contacted me to ask what I would recommend for those of you who were interested in such a…
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Ottoman Dress and Design in the West
Those of you who have known me for a long, long time might remember that I once wrote a proposal for a book on how Islam influenced Western culture in fundamental ways.(1) Those of you who’ve known me even longer know that my dissertation was titled Building the Orient of the Imagination: Excess, Confusion…
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