I'm on my tenth book for the month but am unlikely to finish it before tomorrow night, so my official tally for February will probably stand at nine books. The list includes Ian McEwan's Solar, and The Art of Happiness in a Troubled World by His Holiness XIV Dalai Lama, which I got for Christmas.
A significant proportion of my private library is made up of books about trekking in the Himalayas, mountaineering and travelling in general and I am slowly working my way through the collection. This month, four of the books I read were about the Himalayas and my favourite book was Friends in High Places: a season in the Himalayas by Peter Mayne. It's a bit dated - published in 1975 - but a delightful tale of the author's stay at the Indian Himalayan home of a descendant of an exiled Nepalese Rana. Mayne is particularly fascinated by his host's ancestor, Jang Badahur Rana who was the first of the century-long line of Rana Prime Ministers who effectively ruled Nepal, and the reader is treated to a fascinating account of Jang's rise to power as well as an investigation into the infamous Kot Massacre of 1846 that cemented Jang's hold on the reins of power.
I found the history really enjoyable, but what I loved the most was the account of Mayne's stay at his old friend, Jagut Rana's, country home in the Indian Himalayan foothills near Dehru Dun. His descriptions of the estate and the people who call it home are whimsical and comic without belittling. I found myself totally immersed in the daily routines of this seemingly chaotic household and was sorry that the book had to end, but it has motivated me to seek out his earlier writings - A Year in Marrakesh and The Narrow Smile.
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