"Tent Life" is one of the greats of travel literature. Kennan provides vivid descriptions while avoiding the excesses of many of his contemporaries; and lightens and livens his account with a wry humor reminiscent of another contemporary, Mark Twain.

This work is one of very few accounts of travel in eastern Siberia; one of the least traveled parts of the world, even today. That Kennan's account is readable and enjoyable as well as unique is a wonder.

Very highly recommended.

Carstairs, and Doan as sidekick and translator, raises this otherwise ordinary hard-boiled detective story to a higher plane, and a different genre.

The Carstairs/Doan stories (Carstairs insists on top billing. He does, after all, have a vastly superior pedigree.) are more humour than mystery; and at their best truly amusing humour. The mystery is just as secondary as that in Dorothy Sayers books. Davis may not reach that literary level; but his Carstairs books are well worth a read, and a fine, funny way to while away a quiet evening.