Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly, and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Scott Anderson is on sale today for $2.99 in the US. I read this a while back, mostly prompted by the lyrics to Al Stewart’s League of Notions (not a typo, since Stewart loves puns), and really enjoyed it, while also learning a lot, which is kind of nice. It has picked up a bunch of awards including a Goodreads Choice Award, NPR Best Book of the Year, and New York Times Notable Book award. And it was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography.
Link to lyrics for League of Notions 😊 (hard to find a site without too many ads, but this one’s not too bad): https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/alstewart/aleagueofnotions.html
Or you can go to Stewart’s website (www.alstewart.com), and find the lyrics under the Songs tab, but you have to give him your email address for his newsletter (which doesn’t come out annoyingly often)….