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A Woman in Arabia
A Woman in Arabia: The Writings of the Queen of the Desert | Gertrude Bell
6 posts | 6 read | 1 reading | 7 to read
A portrait in her own words of the female Lawrence of Arabia, the subject of the upcoming major motion picture Queen of the Desert, starring Nicole Kidman, James Franco, Damian Lewis, and Robert Pattinson, and directed by Werner Herzog Gertrude Bell was leaning in 100 years before Sheryl Sandberg. One of the great woman adventurers of the twentieth century, she turned her back on Victorian society to study at Oxford and travel the world, and became the chief architect of British policy in the Middle East after World War I. Mountaineer, archaeologist, Arabist, writer, poet, linguist, and spy, she dedicated her life to championing the Arab cause and was instrumental in drawing the borders that define today’s Middle East. As she wrote in one of her letters, “It’s a bore being a woman when you are in Arabia.” Forthright and spirited, opinionated and playful, and deeply instructive about the Arab world, this volume brings together Bell’s letters, military dispatches, diary entries, and travel writings to offer an intimate look at a woman who shaped nations. For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. From the Trade Paperback edition.
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review
Smarkies
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Pickpick

A compilation of gertrude's letters woven into a biography of sorts. She was truly a remarkable woman. Read this for #readingasia2021 for #iraq as through her efforts, she was effectively one of it's founders.
@Librarybelle @BarbaraBB
This is also my #bookspin for April! @TheAromaofBooks

Librarybelle Oh! Stacking this! 3y
TheAromaofBooks Woohoo!! 3y
BarbaraBB Sounds good! 3y
22 likes1 stack add3 comments
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NotCool
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This is an interesting work of editing and composition because it‘s primarily in Bell‘s own words and, if you have enough of almost anyone‘s words from the turn of the century, I‘m pretty sure it‘s easy to get exasperated. So Bell is an interesting woman of her time. Her time wasn‘t always great.

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ralexist
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Read as an audiobook and told from primary sources, the story of Gertrude Bell is fascinating. A highly educated woman of independent means in early the 1900s she circled the globe, climbed mountains, became fluent in several languages, was an archeologist and an honorary director of a museum, and oh yeah...founded a country. The most documented woman ever, it is a tragedy that Bell remains mostly unknown. Read this today!

Texreader Sounds like my kind of hero!! 6y
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ralexist
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1) Most recently it was Amberlough. Everything indicated that I would love it but I just couldn't keep focused.

2) I don't normally munch on things while reading but some kind of liquid libation is always good.

3) A Woman in Arabia...all about Gertrude Bell, who is definitely someone more of the world needs to know about.

#tuesdaytidbits

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M_landis27
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Primary document excerpts from Gertrude Bell's letters and diaries with commentary from one of her biographers. A good pick!

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M_landis27
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Saturday afternoon at the laundromat.