Over the last few years, I have started writing reviews of some of the books I read – not all of them, but the ones that have taught me something I didn’t know, or have given me a new perspective or a totally new insight about something I thought I knew all about. I started doing this mainly for my own benefit – a kind of aide memoire – so that, months or years later when I try and remember what it was that so impressed me about the book, the review at least gives me the main ideas.

 Then I discovered a website called the “LibraryThing” , where you can catalogue your books on line, see who else reads the same books as you do, and write reviews. So, as I had a head start on some books I had already reviewed for the reason I have explained, I put them up on line. Then, prompted by Amazon sending an email inviting me to review books I had bought there, I started doing the same there.

Now, I have decided to put a selection of these reviews on this site too. The ones I have chosen are all of books which have some relevance – sometimes tenuous – to the history of the Land of Israel. I hope you find them useful.

By the way, if you are a book-lover, LibraryThing  is a very neat site, with various forums, different interest groups and the chance to get free books (all you have to do is read and review them) – “social networking for bibliophiles”.