BLACK TENTS OF ARABIA

Good escape reading -- and a novel setting and motive. Carl Raswan, expert on the subject of the true Arabian horse, spends months at a time with Bedouin tribes, literally ""going native"" and sharing their lives and following their customs. The period covered is both before and after the war (the author is a German -- and the war made a gap in his story). One follows the life of the tribes, and catches the contagion of the desert magic, the glamour of the utter escape from the bondage of civilization, while recognizing the deep roots of an old culture and tradition in the background of these tribes.