Blood and Sand: 10th Anniversary Edition

By Frank Gardner

Book Overview

On the June 6, 2004, while on assignment in Riyadh, BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner and cameraman Simon Cumbers were ambushed by Islamist gunmen. Simon was killed outright. Frank was hit in the shoulder and leg. As he lay in the dust, a figure stood over him and pumped four more bullets into his body at point-blank range...

Against all the odds, Frank Gardner survived.

Today, although partly paralysed, Frank continues to travel the world, reporting and making documentaries for the BBC. This acclaimed memoir was brought up to date with a new chapter that recounted his return to Saudi Arabia for the first time since he was shot and the story he tells continues to move and inspire, and remains an affirmation of his deep understanding of - and affection for - the Islamic world in these uncertain times.
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'Gardner tells his remarkable tale well and bravely, with an astonishing lack of anger and enduring love and respect for the Islamic world' SUNDAY TIMES

'Brave, unsentimental and genuinely inspiring' EVENING STANDARD
'What makes Gardner's moving, often humorous, deeply personal story so important is the fact that he has woven into it a brilliantly dispassionate, clear-eyed account of the Islamic world' SCOTSMAN
'A witty, self-deprecating, inspiring testament' DAILY TELEGRAPH

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0857502433
• ISBN13: 9780857502438
• Release Date: May 2014
• Publisher: Bantam
• Length: 528 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 5.0" x 7.7"

Customer Reviews

BBC journalist's story of his life in the Middle East including being shot

I heard him interviewed on the BBC for his following book and decided to read this one first. He was always an adventurous, traveling guy who was drawn to the Middle East from an early age. He describes his life as a student spending time in Cairo while studying for a degree in Arabic. The chapters on his happy go lucky life as a banker mostly in the Middle East show how at home he felt there and describe his relationships with friends from all over the region as well as the ex-pats. His career change to BBC journalist in his thirties is well covered and so is the shooting of the Irish cameraman and himself in Riyadh. The chapter describing his surgeries, rehabilitation and the coming to terms of life as a paraplegic was very hard to read but doable. Hey, if he could live it I could read it. The whole book is very much about not lumping together all Muslims as terrorists or all Saudis as conservatives or all ex-pats as lightweights for that matter. For anyone who has lived abroad from their fellow countrymen it's not hard to get it but obviously not everyone does. He does a good job of making strange people in strange lands with strange customs more individual and comprehensible than you might expect. A good book for anyone asking why 'they' hate us.