The Chicago Tribune hailed the book as “a delicious rarity that one is sorry to finish but happy to recommend and pick up again for sheer pleasure. From the prospective traveler’s standpoint --the traveler to anywhere--it provides a standard for what that literature can and ought to be. Really seldom does one find a book as entertaining and worthwhile as this one.”
From The Book-of-the-Month Club News: “. . .a delightful record of a witty and observant young man’s sojourn in the ancient Middle East.”
And The New York Times Book Review: . . an urbane and well-writtten account. . .Mr. Harnack has eminently succeeded.”
Strong notices for the London publication:
Raymond Mortimer in the London Sunday Times, lead review : “an amusing, honest and perceptive account of this experience. Mr. Harnack is subtle, and does not delude the public by grossly oversimplifying the problems.”
From Michael Foot (who later headed the Labor Party) in the London Evening Standard:
“He deals in undertones and sideglances. His apparent aim is scarcely political at all, and the book can be sipped down easily as a series of smooth travel essays. Yet the after-effects are sharp and penetrating. . . He tells us much about the Persians at home and more about Americans abroad.”
And in the London Sunday Telegraph, Lord Kinross wrote: “This is an intelligent book, well and wittily written. Observant and often poignant, it is profound in its questions and in its answers honestly inconclusive.”
Curtis Harnack received the Iowa Author Award at the Fifth Annual Iowa Author Awards Dinner on Thursday, October 7, 2004 in Des Moines. The Des Moines Public Library Foundation hosted the event.
