Why did I love this book?
If you haven’t discovered Tahir Shah’s work yet, then this is a great place to start. It is about a quest the writer sets himself to discover the lost Solomon’s Mines in Ethiopia after purchasing an old map in a bazaar in Jerusalem. Shah goes off the beaten track venturing to a cliff-face monastery where the monks pull visitors up on a leather rope, to the ruined castles of Gondar, and to the rock-hewn churches at Lalibela. Most striking of all are his descriptions of an illegal gold mine that he visits where the miners dig with their bare hands. The people he meets, the strange circumstances he finds himself in, and the interesting historical and geographical background he provides all contribute to a rich and compelling account.
1 author picked In Search of King Solomon's Mines as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
King Solomon, the Bible’s wisest king, possessed extraordinary wealth. The grand temple he built in Jerusalem was covered in gold from the porch to the inner sanctum, where the Ark of the Covenant was kept. Long before H. Rider Haggard’s classic adventure novel King Solomon’s Mines unleashed gold fever more than a century ago, many had sought to find the source of the great king’s wealth. In this new adventure—“a hybrid of Indiana Jones and Herodotus” (Sunday Times, London)—Tahir Shah tries his hand at the quest.
Intrigued by a map he finds in a shop not far from the site…