- Hardcover: 368 pages
- Publisher: Doubleday (1 Feb 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0385608071
- ISBN-13: 978-0385608077
- Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 14.6 x 4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
-
Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
525,668 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #84 in Books > Travel & Holiday > Countries & Regions > Africa > Morocco
The Caliph's House
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Book Description
Wonderfully written, funny, entertaining, magical account of the author's struggle to restore a house and set up home in Morocco
Product Description
Look into the eyes of a jinn and you stare into the depths of your own soul... Writer and film-maker Tahir Shah - in his 30s, married, with two small children - was beginning to wilt under brash, cramped, ennervating British city life. Flying in the face of friends' advice, he longed to fulfil his dream of finding a place bursting with life, colour, history and romance - somewhere far removed from London - in which to raise a family. Childhood memories of holidaying with his parents, and of a grandfather he barely knew, led him to Morocco and to 'Dar Khalifa', a sprawling and, with the exception of its jinns, long-abandoned residence on the edge of Casablanca's shanty town that, rumour had it, once belonged to the city's Caliph. And so begins Tahir Shah's gloriously vivid, funny, affectionate and compelling account of how he and his family - aided, abetted and so often hindered by a wonderful cast of larger-than-life local characters: guardians, gardeners, builders, artisans, bureacrats and police (not forgetting the jinns, the spirits that haunt the house) - returned the Caliph's House to its former glory and learned to make this most exotic and alluring of countries their home. The Caliph's House is a story of home-ownership abroad - full of the attendant dramas, anxieties and frustrations - but it is also much more. Woven into the narrative is the author's own journey of self-discovery, of learning about a grandfather he hardly knew, and of coming to love the magical, multi-faceted, contradictory country that is Morocco.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Moving house can be traumatic at the best of times. Moving to a different country can be even more so, there's the language to contend with, the clash of cultures and if you're unlucky a whole host of Jinn to excise. Tahir Shah, an Afghan by blood but an Englishman by nature writes the most exquisite upper class prose of his move to Casablanca. He turns the normally dull subject if house renovation into the most fantastic series of adventures that deal with the mundane issues of bribing various officials to the adventures bordering on the supernatural where he deals with the various Jinn's that plague his stay. Expect to learn a lot about the culture and customs of Morocco, but this is not the sort of travel writing to profoundly move you or inspire you. This more the sort that makes you chuckle gently as you read away a blissful Sunday afternoon.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book is unputdownable. Just one more page....and then suddenly its all over and you wish there was more. It is funny, sensitive, and a real journey in time and space. The rich tapestry of this family's building of a life in their Caliph's House brought me sunshine, filling my life and transporting me away from the grim grey London winter into another dimension. A perfect antidote to February & March.
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
‘Your grandfather taught us so many things, but the thing that affected me most was his advice to seek out what is no immediately seen. He said that on the surface, the carrot is a mere tuft of green, but under the ground there’s a root waiting to be found… He always told me to meet ordinary people. “The ordinary world”, he would say, “is complete”’. These words, revealed by an old acquaintance of Ikbal Ali Shah, probably set Tahir Shah on the right track, and his nightmare about how to settle in a new house, in fact how to settle in a strange environment, took another turn. As the zillij pattern he was trying to lay down in his house, the many sided events he encountered needed the background of a whole design to make sense.
Amazing reading, as the palace Dar-al-Caliph, a remote dream of a sunny unshackled life in Morocco, away from the safe-hygienic-boring life in England, becomes an entity of its own, a melting pot where dreams fade away and not finding the warp and weft of the unfolding situation may mean loosing everything. Not to be missed the advice given by his wife, when the situation becomes mad: ‘If you want the house done you have to be like a Moroccan’.
Amazing reading, as the palace Dar-al-Caliph, a remote dream of a sunny unshackled life in Morocco, away from the safe-hygienic-boring life in England, becomes an entity of its own, a melting pot where dreams fade away and not finding the warp and weft of the unfolding situation may mean loosing everything. Not to be missed the advice given by his wife, when the situation becomes mad: ‘If you want the house done you have to be like a Moroccan’.
‘Jinns, collecting the grandfather’s legacy, the underbelly of Moroccan life, more jinns, old age crafts, guile, the humour of the absurd, the world seen from one of its peculiar corners ….’
Read it, perhaps you may find a piece of zillij, or a broken tile that may fit somewhere in your own house.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Morocco comes alive
This book is excellent. Mr Shah's gift in writing is the ability to bring everything he describes, come to life. Read more
Published 22 days ago by Reat
Entertaining, but low on facts
I did somewhat enjoy reading this book, but as a entertaining story and not as a factual account of living in Morocco, indeed the whole feeling that any facts are heavily added to... Read more
Published 5 months ago by PVWatson
May he should have stayed home!!
I came across "The Caliph's House" by accident while on holiday - Regretfully I'd never heard of Tahir Shah. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Mark Dene
A thoroughly enjoyable book!
I could not put this book down! Shah's writing is funny, warm hearted and his character shines throughout the story. Read more
Published on 17 May 2010 by Helen_Anne
A hilarious and authentic tale of life in Morocco as a foreigner.
I lived for 3 marvelous years in Marrakech, and this book was recommended to me by a friend who has lived there for over a decade. Read more
Published on 4 April 2010 by E. B. Terry
Book Review
I found the book a disappointing as it just seemed to skim the surface of everything - no particular depth to characters, descriptions, etc. Read more
Published on 26 Feb 2010 by M. Ratcliffe
The Caliph's House
We have all read about folk who try to convert houses/barns in Provence, Spain or Italy, and marveled at how they ever reached completion. Well, this guy is in a different league! Read more
Published on 7 Jan 2010 by CNF
Completely absorbing
We've all been through the stress of moving house, but most of the time we don't have to deal with cursed, locked rooms, a plethora of djinns and some very suspect building... Read more
Published on 25 May 2009 by thehighrise
Lucky Old Caliph
Somewhat self-regarding and self-congratulatory. Lots of 'how awful life must be in Britain and how wise I am to get away from it all'. Read more
Published on 9 July 2008 by Ventris Arden
Facinating, well written and throughly enjoyable.
Often in life the journey is more enjoyable than arrival at the final destination, and this is true to the Caliph's House. Read more
Published on 3 Feb 2008 by C. B. Dude
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
