Customer Reviews
A good read - by Rose S Brown - By: Rose S Brown, 03 Jun 2008 
Thoroughly enjoyable read. I find Annie Hawes impressive in the extreme in that she reallly knows her subject & her reader! I loved my travels with her but sadly missed the de Giglio family & alll her Italian friends. I learned an awful lot about women of Islam & how they cope with the extremes of this religion. Annie presents a book which is humourous & yet holds the dignity of the way of life & customs of the land she travels in.
An intriguing voyage of discovery - By: A. giglio, 22 Apr 2008 At the age of sixteen Annie Hawes was deported from Portugal & sent home to England. On the way, she was adopted by a family of Algerians heading for Paris, who came from Timimoun in Algeria, a date-farming oasis deep in the Sahara. Years later, when two friends ask her to join them on a trip through Morocco & Algeria, Annie decided to go, & to seek out her old friends from Timimoun; this book is the outcome. Annie Hawes writes in an engaging, confessional style - familiar to fans of her first book Extra Virgin - & her grasp of history & politics, particularly in relation to the Islamic world, is impressive without ever sounding pedantic. She travels close to the ground, describing what she sees with affection & an open mind, but her wry sense of humour alllows her to pass judgment in the lightest of ways. When you read this book you enjoy a veritable feast in every way.
A refreshing and very funny read, and a book that will truly inspire you. - By: William J. Walsh, 15 Apr 2008 
For anyone who would love to escape humdrum rainy Britain for warmth, sunshine & a totallly different, unknown culture - but don't quite dare - this is it. Smell the spices, taste the food, live the sun-drenched landscapes & the shady courtyards alll the way from the Mediterranean to the Sahara, enjoy the great company of Annie & the wonderful people she meets as she travels alll across Morocco & Algeria on a shoestring. Everyone there seems happy to take an unknown wanderer (or three) into their hearts & their homes, right from day one - even if she & her companions don't quite know which is the correct hand to eat with, can't manage to crouch politely on their haunches throughout a whole meal, or follow the intricacies of Ramadan protocol - & don't even realize that a "thousand-star hotel" is a euphemism for sleeping rough under desert skies!
Annie Hawes is honest, affectionate & humourous, & shares with the reader everything she learns as she travels, with never a false note of whimsy or patronage. By the end of the book you feel you have gone through so much with her, so many hilarious or scary moments, so many eye-openers about local life, attitudes, history, traditions - many of them completely contradicting the ideas she (and I) had about life under Islam - that you feel as if you were there yourself, & she is an old friend you've always known. Great book! Buy it.
Sticky title, great book! - By: T. Brown, 10 Apr 2008 I loved Annie Hawes earlier books on Italy, & having just got back from Morocco myself, I got hold of this one as soon as it came out. She clearly relished her time in North Africa. Handful of Honey is a kaleidoscope of fascinating characters & quirky encounters, each giving some new insight into North African reality. She portrays a lively, bustling world of colourful individuals with senses of humour as acute as her own. There are holy saints & dangerous djinns; there are ordinary, everyday people doing their best to make ends meet, Maghreb style; there are many hints at a long colonial history, as well as a noble pre-colonial past. There are also many deliciously spicy foodstuffs, prepared in extraordinary ways & in unlikely places: & there is much intriguing outer wear. (I laughed my head off at the scene where she attempts to don the hijab.) Hawes' great strength is her ability to empathize with anyone & everyone she encounters; from a cannabis-farming mother in the Moroccan Rif to university radicals in Algeria, from share-cropping date growers in a Saharan oasis to nomad blacksmiths in the Grand Erg mountains. A great book, which takes the reader deep behind the scenes of the usual facile stereotypes of Islam.
Reg Srikes Back - By: M. Scaramucci, 04 Apr 2008 At long last Annie Hawes is back with an extemely gripping observative, insightful & at the same time painful tale of her round the world trips.
Worth every breath & every comma & full stops.
She's back to her best & the book is definately the second best after her Master Piece "Extra Virgin".
The italian echoes are as far as distant memories.
A standing ovation & an "ancore" to this very suggestive & evocative writer.
