. . . are you reading now?

I’M FINDING it hard to hold a book, as I’ve broken my wrist and it’s in plaster — I was boxing. I should know better at my age, but my two teenage boys got me into it! So I’ve downloaded Yuval Noah Harari’s Special Operations In The Age Of Chivalry, 1100-1550, onto my Kindle. Written in 2007, before the author became famous with his bestseller Sapiens, this is his gripping treatise on covert operations, espionage, assassination squads and behind-the-lines missions in the Middle Ages. The clandestine ops were aimed chiefly at killing or capturing key iconic leaders — kings and princes — or their fortified castles. These tales of bluff, trickery, disguise and deception rival anything from the modern era. As history teaches us, nothing is ever really new . . .