Seven Pillars of Wisdom

Roy McMillan reads this so well.

As the book was written for others. that could perhaps explain if one needs explanation, why this book is so intimate. It has the feel and resonance of letters from a friend.
Roy McMillan captures this.
Also Lawrence's style of writing, what he writes about, moving through the experiences, the people and events and places that all contribute to a great account. He was an archeologist working in the Middle East before being asked to work with the Military Intellegence.

The pdf is helpfull, giving times and chapters as well as a simple map. If you are like me you will find some excellent links through Wikipedia and well, just surfin. So I have listened once since downloading and spent as much if not more time searching the web.

The events in 'Seven Pillars' are almost 100 years old. The decisions of Super Powers of the day, still influence us today.
While a lot has been written about the man, it is good to hear or read his own account. Keeping in mind he was with the British Military Intellegence at the time there are no doubt many things he did not write about.
And yes, I am thankfull Lawrence wrote Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Armed with better maps and Bio's my second read will be very slow.

T.E. Lawrence went home a hero. History still holds him such. But honest men know that as has been typical of other conquerors toward their conquered, the British lied and cheated the Arab people and used them for cannon fodder to reduce loss of British lives.

Lawrence went home a hero, but in his heart he more honestly felt himself a failure. In this book he tells the truth of his failures and the emotional pain they bought him.

This book is worthy of the library shelves of any serious student of history.

Yes. I have been listening to it again. This memoir has so much detail, and so much happens, and it is so full of strange sounding names of tribes and tribal leaders and places, and so much intrigue, that it is possible to thoroughly enjoy going through it once to get the big picture and then go through it again to go over the details you missed the first time and still thoroughly enjoy it the second time!

There are so many it is difficult to choose, and so much variation. I love the descriptions of Auda of the Abu Tayi and his various exploits. He is such a larger than life character, its almost difficult to believe that such an extraordinary person ever lived. The way Lawrence wrote about Auda, he seemed clearly in awe of him. Some of the battle descriptions are quite grim, but particularly disturbing was the description of his capture and torture by Turkish troops.

I thought he did a fantastic job. His accents, his timing...I couldn't fault it.

I laughed on a few occasions, but more often I found myself going "ewww".

One of the things that is striking about this book, particularly bearing in mind when it was written, is that it is very personal and honest and Lawrence lets you see inside his head and often enough you would rather not look but he was such an extraordinary and strange man you can't stop yourself listening.