The Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca Tahir Shah, . . Bantam, $22 (349pp) ... Shah buys the Caliph's House, once a palatial compound, now heavy with algae, cobwebs and termites.

“The Caliph’s House: A Year in Casablanca” ($13, Bantam Books) initially looked like the hundreds of other personal accounts that have crossed my desk over the past couple of years ...

Tahir Shah is a writer based in Casablanca, where he lives in the Dar Khalifa mansion. He is the author of The Caliph’s House: A Year in Casablanca and In Arabian Nights: A Caravan of Moroccan ...

It's been 20 years since Peter Mayle wrote his bestseller A Year in Provence, and there's no sign yet of the "Year In . . ." franchise flagging. After all, what two-week vacationer could fail to ...

The Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca by Tahir Shah (Doubleday, £15) At this time of year, freelance writers in London flats tend to dream of selling up to buy a house in the sun. Most of us ...