Began reading Amin Maalouf's Samarkand,
which chronicles the adventures of a young Omar Khayyam.
The novel, originally in French, mixes a fantastic modern-day tale of the manuscript's redisovery with an account of its creation, just as the Seljuks were advancing across Persia.
This picture appeared on the front page of today's New York Times.
A few months ago, the Week in Review section had a heartbreaking series of photographs on a similar theme.