Used book – Balthasar's Odyssey, Amin Maalouf

"What this woman's presence soothed in me was not a traveler's carnal thirst; it was my primal distress. I was born a stranger, I have lived a stranger, and I will die an even greater stranger. I am too proud to speak of hostility, humiliations, resentment, or suffering, but I can recognize glances and gestures. There are women's arms that are places of exile, and others that are one's native land." Setting out on the roads in 1665, the narrator of this story, Baldassare Embriaco, a Genoese of the Orient and a merchant of curiosities, is in pursuit of a book said to bring salvation to a desperate world. No doubt he is also searching for something that could still give meaning to his own existence.

During his journey, across the Mediterranean and beyond, Baldassare traverses countries in perdition, cities ablaze, and communities in waiting. He encounters fear, deceit, and disillusionment; but also love, at a time when he least expected it.