Fans pick 100 books like Folk Dress in Europe and Anatolia

I have often been asked why I became an expert on vampires. The answer always goes back to my childhood, when I went to horror and sci-fi movies and watched old vampire movies on TV. In 1976, I published my first book of poetry, The Dracula Poems. My vampire interest eventually combined with my background in Russian literature when I discovered Perkowski’s Vampires of the Slavs. I obtained my Ph.D. in Slavic Folklore from UVA and have kept up my interest in this fascinating subject ever since. I am planning another book on the period known as Magia Posthuma when there were “epidemics” of vampirism around Austro-Hungary. 

I’m an information junkie who loves to dance. I fell in love with folk dancing at age 6, European archaeology at 11, linguistics and cognition at 21—and could never drop any of them. My scientist-father always said, “Follow the problem, not the discipline,” and I began to see how these fields could help answer each other’s questions. Words can survive for millennia—with information about what archaeologists don’t find, like oh-so-perishable cloth. Determining how to reconstruct prehistoric textiles (Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years) then led me to trace the origins of various European folk costumes, and finally even to reconstruct something about the origins of the dances themselves.

I’m an information junkie who loves to dance. I fell in love with folk dancing at age 6, European archaeology at 11, linguistics and cognition at 21—and could never drop any of them. My scientist-father always said, “Follow the problem, not the discipline,” and I began to see how these fields could help answer each other’s questions. Words can survive for millennia—with information about what archaeologists don’t find, like oh-so-perishable cloth. Determining how to reconstruct prehistoric textiles (Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years) then led me to trace the origins of various European folk costumes, and finally even to reconstruct something about the origins of the dances themselves.

I’m an information junkie who loves to dance. I fell in love with folk dancing at age 6, European archaeology at 11, linguistics and cognition at 21—and could never drop any of them. My scientist-father always said, “Follow the problem, not the discipline,” and I began to see how these fields could help answer each other’s questions. Words can survive for millennia—with information about what archaeologists don’t find, like oh-so-perishable cloth. Determining how to reconstruct prehistoric textiles (Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years) then led me to trace the origins of various European folk costumes, and finally even to reconstruct something about the origins of the dances themselves.

Emrah Sahin is a specialist in the history of religious interactions and international operations in Islam and Muslim-Christian relations. He received a Ph.D. from McGill University, a Social Science and Humanities Research Award from Canada, the Sabancı International Research Award from Turkey, and the Teacher of the Year Award from the University of Florida. He is currently with the University of Florida as a board member in Global Islamic Studies, an affiliate in History, a lecturer in European Studies, a college-wide advisor, and the coordinator of the federal Global Officer program.

Listening to my father’s stories about flying for the U.S. 15th Air Force in the Second World War kindled my love for military history at a young age. He brought to life the individual experiences and strategic context of bombing targets like Ploesti and Brenner Pass. Later, I pursued my doctorate in history and focused on U.S. Marine Corps history. More recently, my interests shifted to writing about broader topics like American military history, grand strategy, and race and gender in warfare. Even so, my father left me with an enduring desire to understand human interests and emotions, whether among common soldiers or senior generals. This desire affected my work as a teacher and author.

Since I was a kid, “someplace else” has always looked good to me. I turned that passion into a career. I have been a travel writer for the New York Times and travel commenter for Public Radio International. Three of my published books are humorous travel memoirs. I’ve written books about what’s funny when your destination is middle age, the hilarious thrills and disasters that befall you when you’re pretending to be French in Provence, and the gender problems that arise when traveling while married. Bragging is a vice I usually avoid, but I can’t resist telling you that reviewers of my travel books have compared my humor to that of the late Erma Bombeck. I also enjoy giving credit to other successful, amusing humor writers.

I am a journalist who has written books on American history for the general reader but not an academic historian or specialist, though I have the utmost respect for both. I like to think I have an independent mind and that I look for ideas that challenge conventional wisdom but are rooted in good sense and critical intelligence. The books I have recommended here reflect this temperament and, I believe, an innate sense of the comic and absurd. These are desperately needed at a time when people take themselves much too seriously—as in a presidential election year. 

I have specialised in writing about radicals and non-conformists who seem to me to be the most interesting people in the world. I like books about people doing challenging things and making a difference. I love travelling to obscure archives in other countries and finding the riches of personal papers in dusty old rooms curated by eccentric archivists who greet me like an old friend.

I have been to Europe a handful of times, exploring Paris, Italy, Malta, Spain, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, and Amsterdam. Europe lends itself perfectly to be immortalised in literature. The continent is steeped in thousands of years of charming history, oozing out of the cobblestoned streets and painted in layers on the buildings. Scratch the surface and a new, richer layer comes to the fore, exciting and amazing anew. Europe inevitably turns into one of the important characters in any book set there and many a writer have managed to capture its essence in their work. Alongside Peter Sarstedt, Europe inspired my work, taking the reader along on a wondrous journey.