Golding to The Koran

On authors in my recommended reading:

With the exception of 'Lord of the Flies', Golding’s strange, haunting, difficult novels have few readers these days, and his post­humous reputation is neglected and in decline. --William Boyd

Since Herbert Butterfield vivisected Macaulay’s 'History of England' in the 1930s, it has been derided as a canonical example of “Whig history”—that venerable sectarian mythology designed to champion liberalism and Protestantism as the twin engines of human progress. --Jeffrey Collins

Jane Austen's Fight Club, TwoTurntablesNMic, at You Tube (via InstaPundit)

In contrast to Lewis [Bernard Lewis in 'Faith and Power'], who depicts Islam as aggressive from the start, Donner [Fred M. Donner in 'Muhammed and the Believers'] shows that contemporary followers of other religions initially, and perhaps even for several generations, regarded Islam as an open-minded and not specially threatening movement with universalist aspirations. --Max Rodenbeck