Misadventure in the Middle East by Henry Hemming

Henry Hemming is an artist who decided to travel around the Middle East with a friend, Al Braithwaite, and a car called Yasmine, not long after 9/11. They wanted to make art about the Middle East ... and soon discovered that there was not just one "Middle East" that could be summed up in the work. The book is a discovery of the vastly different people and places that Henry, Al, and, intermittently, Stephen and Georgie, made while passing through and exploring Turkey, Iran, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Iran, to name a few. It charts their adventures and misadventures. Being mistaken for terrorists, tramps, spies, and sometimes recognised as artists, meeting princesses, poor, soldiers, students, Hemming describes each step of the way as he and his friends find out more about Islam in the Middle East, and the artists who live and work there. Since the Second Iraq War started while they were out there, the book also contains some interesting political and cultural observations as well. Eye opening and informative.