Travels with a Tangerine

The relatively unknown Ibn Battutah (1304-1368) grew up in Tangier, Morocco. At the age of 21, he embarked on a journey throughout the Middle and Far East for almost 30 years. The author, a British man who has lived in Yemen for 17 years and is fluent in Arabic undertakes a journey that will be about a third of Ibn Battutah's.

I used to read a lot more travelogues and I've really enjoyed them. Not this one, though. In fact I'm surprised I got as far as I did with this one (more than half-way). The author's prose is dry, uncompelling, and rambling. Yeah, he knows a lot of history... but he doesn't convey it very well. He's just dull.