As recommended by author Rory Stewart: "The five-hundred-year-old diary of Babur, the first Mughal emperor of India, describes his journey from exile in a small kingdom in Uzbekistan to the conquest of a giant Muslim empire. He is a poet, a general, a statesman, a wine connoisseur, and above all a gardener. He does not attempt to conceal his defeats, his embarrassments, his unrequited loves. His clipped, confident prose reveals both the mentalities and city life of medieval central Asia."  (CAS149, $17.95)