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books tagged “Iran”
books tagged “Iran”
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All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terrorby Stephen KinzerISBN 0471678783 (0-471-67878-3)
Softcover, John Wiley & Sons Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror'Book summary:This is the first full-length account of the CIA's coup d'etat in Iran in 1953a covert operation whose consequences are still with us today. Written by a noted New York Times journalist, this book is based on documents about the coup (including some lengthy internal CIA reports) that have now been declassified. Stephen Kinzer's compelling narrative is at once a vital piece of history, a cautionary tale, and a real-life espionage thriller. [via]
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Among the Believers: An Islamic Journeyby Vidiadhar Surajprasad NaipaulISBN 0394711955 (0-394-71195-5)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey'Book summary:Naipaul's controversial account of his travels through the Islamic world was hailed by The New Republic as "the most notable work on contemporary Islam to have appeared in a very long time."
From the Trade Paperback edition. [via]More editions of Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey:
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Among the Believers: An Islamic Journeyby V. S. NaipaulISBN 0394509692 (0-394-50969-2)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey'Book summary:Naipaul's controversial account of his travels through the Islamic world was hailed by The New Republic as "the most notable work on contemporary Islam to have appeared in a very long time."
From the Trade Paperback edition. [via]More editions of Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey:
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Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions Among the Converted Peoplesby V.S. NaipaulISBN 0375706488 (0-375-70648-8)
Softcover, Vintage Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions Among the Converted Peoples'Book summary:"For sheer abundance of talent, there can hardly be a writer alive who surpasses V. S. Naipaul. [He is] the world's writer, a master of language and perception."--The New York Times Book Review
"A superlative traveler who misses nothing worth the record."--The Times (London)
Beyond Belief is a book about one of the more important and unsettling issues of our time: the effects of the Islamic conversion of Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, and Malaysia. It is not a book of opinion. It is--in the Naipaul way--a very rich and human book, full of people and stories.
Islam is an Arab religion, and it makes imperial Arabizing demands on its converts. In this way it is more than a private faith, and it can become a neurosis. What has this Arab Islam done to the histories of these converted countries? How do the converted peoples, non-Arabs, view their past--and their future? In a follow-up to Among the Believers, his classic account of his travels through these countries, V. S. Naipaul returns after seventeen years to find out how and what the converted preach.
In Indonesia he finds a pastoral people who have lost their history through a confluence of Islam and technology. In Iran he discovers a religious tyranny as oppressive as the secular one of the Shah, and he meets people weary of the religious rules that govern every aspect of their lives. Pakistan--in a tragic realization of a Muslim re-creation fantasy--inherited blood feuds, rotting palaces, antique cruelty; then President Zia installed religious terror with $100 million of Saudi money. In Malaysia, the Muslim Youth organization is alive and growing, and the people are mentally, physically, and geographically torn between two worlds, struggling to live the impossible dream of a true faith born out of a spiritual vacancy.
A startling and revelatory addition to the Naipaul canon, Beyond Belief confirms the author's reputation as a masterly observer, a "finder-out" of stories, as well as a magnificent teller of them. [via]More editions of Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions Among the Converted Peoples:
Blind Owlby D. P. Costello, Sadegh HedayatISBN 0862416760 (0-86241-676-0)
Softcover, Rebel Inc.
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Blind Owlby Sadegh HedayatISBN 0802131808 (0-8021-3180-8)
Softcover, Grove Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Blind Owl'Book summary:Considered one of the most important works of modern Iranian literature, The Blind Owl is a haunting tale of loss and spiritual degradation. Replete with potent symbolism and terrifying surrealistic imagery, Sadegh Hedayat's masterpice details a young man's despair after losing a mysterious lover. As the narrator gradually drifts into madness, the reader becomes caught in the sandstorm of Hedayat's bleak vision of the human condition.[via]More editions of Blind Owl:
The Blindfold Horse: Memories of a Persian Childhoodby Shusha GuppyISBN 1850434018 (1-85043-401-8)
Softcover, Tauris Parke Paperbacks
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Blindfold Horse: Memories of a Persian Childhood'Book summary:"Guppy's memoir of life in Iran before the Ayatollahs is exquisite. It conveys a sense of the country and its customs, which reveal better than most documents, the nature of the crisis which Iran is still enduring." -William Shawcross, Sunday Times (London) [via]
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Chicken With Plumsby Marjane SatrapiISBN 0375424156 (0-375-42415-6)
Hardcover, Pantheon Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Chicken With Plums'Book summary:In her acclaimed Persepolis books and in Embroideries, Marjane Satrapi rendered the events of her life and times in a uniquely captivating and powerful voice and vision. Now she turns that same keen eye and ear to the heartrending story of her great-uncle, a celebrated Iranian musician who gave up his life for music and love.
We are in Tehran in 1958, and Nasser Ali Khan, one of Irans most revered tar players, discovers that his beloved instrument is irreparably damaged. Though he tries, he cannot find one to replace it, one whose sound speaks to him with the same power and passion with which his music speaks to others. In despair, he takes to his bed, renouncing the world and all its pleasures, closing the door on the demands and love of his wife and his four children. Over the course of the week that follows, his family and close friends attempt to change his mind, but Nasser Ali slips further and further into his own reveries: flashbacks and flash-forwards (with unexpected appearances by the likes of the Angel of Death and Sophia Loren) from his own childhood through his childrens futures. And as the pieces of his story slowly fall into place, we begin to understand the profundity of his decision to give up life.
Marjane Satrapi brings what has become her signature humor, insight, and generosity to this emotional tale of life and death, and the courage and passion both require of us. The poignant story of one man, it is also a story of stunning universalityand an altogether luminous work. [via]More editions of Chicken With Plums:
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Embroideriesby Marjane SatrapiISBN 0375714677 (0-375-71467-7)
Softcover, Pantheon Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Embroideries'Book summary:From the best-selling author of Persepolis comes this gloriously entertaining and enlightening look into the sex lives of Iranian women. Embroideries gathers together Marjanes tough-talking grandmother, stoic mother, glamorous and eccentric aunt and their friends and neighbors for an afternoon of tea drinking and talking. Naturally, the subject turns to love, sex and the vagaries of men.
As the afternoon progresses, these vibrant women share their secrets, their regrets and their often outrageous stories about, among other things, how to fake ones virginity, how to escape an arranged marriage, how to enjoy the miracles of plastic surgery and how to delight in being a mistress. By turns revealing and hilarious, these are stories about the lengths to which some women will go to find a man, keep a man or, most importantly, keep up appearances.
Full of surprises, this introduction to the private lives of some fascinating women, whose life stories and lovers and will strike us as at once deeply familiar and profoundly different from our own, is sure to bring smiles of recognition to the faces of women everywhereand to teach us all a thing or two. [via] -
The Essential Rumiby Coleman Barks, Jalal Al-Din Rumi, John MoyneISBN 0062509594 (0-06-250959-4)
Softcover, Harper San Francisco
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Essential Rumi'Book summary:No translator could do greater justice to the gorgeous simplicity of Rumi's poetry than Coleman Barks has done here. These exquisite renderings of the 13th-century Persian mystic's words into American free verse capture all the "inner searching, the delicacy, and simple groundedness" that characterize Rumi's poetry while remaining faithful to the images, tone, and spiritual message of the originals. Barks's introductions to each of the 27 sections (described as "playful palimpsests spread over Rumi's imagination," and "meant to confuse scholars who would divide Rumi's poetry into the accepted categories") are themselves wonderful achievements of a poetic imagination; searching explanations of unfamiliar concepts and funny stories provide colorful background and frame the selections as no dry historical exegesis could.
While Barks's stamp on this collection is clear, it in no way interferes with the poems themselves; Rumi's voice leaps off these pages with an ecstatic energy that leaves readers breathless. There are poems of love, rage, sadness, pleading, and longing; passionate outbursts about the torture of longing for his beloved and the sweet pleasure that comes from their union; amusing stories of sexual exploits or human weakness; and quiet truths about the beauty and variety of human emotion. More than anything, Rumi makes plain the unbridled joy that comes from living life fully, urging us always to put aside our fears and take the risk to do so. As he says: "The way of love is not / a subtle argument. / The door there is devastation. / Birds make great sky-circles / of their freedom. / How do they learn it? / They fall, and falling, / they're given wings." --Uma Kukathas [via]
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Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in Americaby Firoozeh DumasISBN 1400060400 (1-4000-6040-0)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Funny in Farsi : A Memoir of Growing up Iranian in America'Book summary:This new Readers Circle edition includes a reading group guide and a conversation between Firoozeh Dumas and Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner.
In 1972, when she was seven, Firoozeh Dumas and her family moved from Iran to Southern California, arriving with no firsthand knowledge of this country beyond her fathers glowing memories of his graduate school years here. More family soon followed, and the clan has been here ever since.
Funny in Farsi chronicles the American journey of Dumass wonderfully engaging family: her engineer father, a sweetly quixotic dreamer who first sought riches on Bowling for Dollars and in Las Vegas, and later lost his job during the Iranian revolution; her elegant mother, who never fully mastered English (nor cared to); her uncle, who combated the effects of American fast food with an army of miraculous American weight-loss gadgets; and Firoozeh herself, who as a girl changed her name to Julie, and who encountered a second wave of culture shock when she met and married a Frenchman, becoming part of a one-couple melting pot.
In a series of deftly drawn scenes, we watch the family grapple with American English (hot dogs and hush puppies?a complete mystery), American traditions (Thanksgiving turkey?an even greater mystery, since it tastes like nothing), and American culture (Firoozehs parents laugh uproariously at Bob Hope on television, although they dont get the jokes even when she translates them into Farsi).
Above all, this is an unforgettable story of identity, discovery, and the power of family love. It is a book that will leave us all laughingwithout an accent. [via]More editions of Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America:
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Garden of the Brave in Warby Terence O'DonnellISBN 0899190162 (0-89919-016-2)
Hardcover, Ticknor & Fields
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Garden of the Brave in War'Book summary:When Terence O'Donnell, an American who lived in Iran for fifteen years in the 1960s and 1970s, was asked what he was doing there, he replied, "The conviction of all Iranians, of most of my compatriots, and indeed of the Russians, was that I was engaged in intelligence work. I was, and what is more I filed a daily report. My employer was myself and my reports consisted of eight thousand pages of journal. This book was drawn from that material." For ten years, O'Donnell lived on a farm near Shiraz, in southern Iran, where he raised mainly pomegranates, but also quinces, grapes, chickens, and bees. He also made many Iranian friends. His memories of that time have yielded a masterpiece of national portraiture, wonderfully alive to the complexities of the Iranian character-courteous, capricious, deeply religious yet also playful, generous, and poetic. A work of shimmering beauty and sensitivity, Garden of the Brave in War will deepen every reader's understanding of the often elusive country that lies behind the headlines. [via]
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Garden of the Brave in War: Recollections of Iranby Terence O'Donnell, Dick DavisISBN 0934211809 (0-934211-80-9)
Softcover, Mage Pub
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Garden of the Brave in War: Recollections of Iran'More editions of Garden of the Brave in War: Recollections of Iran:
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The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle Eastby Robert FiskISBN 1400075173 (1-4000-7517-3)
Softcover, Vintage Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East'Book summary:During the thirty years that award-winning journalist Robert Fisk has been reporting on the Middle East, he has covered every major event in the region, from the Algerian Civil War to the Iranian Revolution, from the American hostage crisis in Beirut (as one of only two Western journalists in the city at the time) to the Iran-Iraq War, from the Russian invasion of Afghanistan to Israels invasions of Lebanon, from the Gulf War to the invasion and ongoing war in Iraq. Now he brings his knowledge, his firsthand experience and his intimate understanding of the Middle East to a book that addresses the full complexity of its political history and its current state of affairs.
Passionate in his concerns about the region and relentless in his pursuit of the truth, Fisk has been able to enter the world of the Middle East and the lives of its people as few other journalists have. The result is a work of stunning reportage. His unblinking eyewitness testimony to the horrors of war places him squarely in the tradition of the great frontline reporters of the Second World War. His searing descriptions of lives mangled in the chaos of battle and of the battles themselves are at once dreadful and heartrending.
This is also a book of lucid, incisive analysis. Reaching back into the long history of invasion, occupation and colonization in the region, Fisk sets forth this information in a way that makes clear how a history of injustice has condemned the Middle East to war. He lays open the role of the West in the seemingly endless strife and warfare in the region, traces the growth of the Wests involvement and influence there over the past one hundred years, and outlines the Wests record of support for some of the most ruthless leaders in the Middle East. He chronicles the ever-more-powerful military presence of the United States and tracks the consequent, increasingly virulent anti-Westernand particularly anti-Americansentiment among the regions Muslim populations.
Fisk interweaves this history with his own vividly rendered experiences in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Algeria, Israel, Palestine and Lebanonon the front lines; behind the scenes; in the streets of cities and villages; and inside military headquarters, the hideouts of guerrillas, the homes of ordinary citizens. Here, too, are indelible portraits of Osama bin Laden, Ayatollah Khomeini and Yassir Arafat, among othersall of whom he has met face-to-facerevelatory in their apprehension of the individuals and the ideologies they represent.
Finally, The Great War for Civilisation is the story of journalists in war: of their attempts to report the first, impartial drafts of history, to monitor the centers of power, to challenge authority ( especially . . . when governments and politicians take us to war ) and to battle an increasingly partisan worldwide media in their determination to report the truth.
Unflinching, provocative, brilliantly writtena work of major importance for todays world. [via]More editions of The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East:
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Guests of the Ayatollah: The First Battle in America's War With Militant Islamby Mark BowdenISBN 0802143032 (0-8021-4303-2)
Softcover, Grove Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Guests of the Ayatollah: The First Battle in America's War With Miltiant Islam'Book summary:From the best-selling author of Black Hawk Down comes a riveting, definitive chronicle of the Iran hostage crisis, Americas first battle with militant Islam. On November 4, 1979, a group of radical Islamist students, inspired by the revolutionary Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini, stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran. They took fifty-two Americans hostage, and kept nearly all of them hostage for 444 days. In Guests of the Ayatollah, Mark Bowden tells this sweeping story through the eyes of the hostages, the soldiers in a new special forces unit sent to free them, their radical, naïve captors, and the diplomats working to end the crisis. Bowden takes us inside the hostages cells and inside the Oval Office for meetings with President Carter and his exhausted team. We travel to international capitals where shadowy figures held clandestine negotiations, and to the deserts of Iran, where a courageous, desperate attempt to rescue the hostages exploded into tragic failure. Bowden dedicated five years to this research, including numerous trips to Iran and countless interviews with those involved on both sides. Guests of the Ayatollah is a detailed, brilliantly re-created, and suspenseful account of a crisis that gripped and ultimately changed the world.[via]More editions of Guests of the Ayatollah: The First Battle in America's War With Militant Islam:
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Honeymoon in Purdah: An Iranian Journeyby Alison WearingISBN 0312263449 (0-312-26344-9)
Softcover, Picador USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Honeymoon in Purdah: An Iranian Journey'Book summary:Twenty years after the Iranian revolution, most westerners still imagine Iran to be a warren of anti-American rhetoric, terrorism, and fanatical repression, especially of women. Not surprisingly, only an unusual woman would choose to travel there, and Alison Wearing is certainly that. "I refused to believe that such a place of unalloyed evil truly existed," she writes. "I like to look for saints where there are said to be demons." Since it is the only country the world traveler could not imagine going to alone, she takes her fussy, gay roommate Ian, along with a fake wedding certificate and a story that they're on their honeymoon. Then she dons a black cloak, scarf, and chador (the full body covering required by Shiite Islam) for a five-month journey from the Caspian Sea (breaking into the Shah's ramshackle summer palace) to the holy city of Qom (and Khomeini's shrine) to a hidden Zoroastrian prayer site (where she faints from heat stroke). From the moment she steps into the country, she's surrounded by Iranians touched by her eagerness to learn about their country. There is the housewife who challenges her to a game of Ping-Pong in her long robe and scarf, offering food to her guests in between killer serves, and the Anglican minister who is "wholly enthralled by the art of living." There is the couple who spirit her away to a mountain oasis when she complains of the heat (leaving a message for Ian, "Mister Canada, we take your wife. We make her cold"), and the mother who tries to marry off her doctor son, joking that Wearing can't leave "not without my doctor" (a reference to the American film Not Without My Daughter).
Wearing has a gift for connecting with others and the humility to let them tell their own stories. She also sees the hilarity in the most absurd situations. As it turns out, so do the Iranians, which makes for some wonderful laughs. Wearing is also a poet, and she unveils the Iranians with innocence and grace--their hospitality, their quick acceptance and easy intimacy, and the real life of women beneath the veil. And while there are strict defenders of the revolution, most are philosophical: "Friends, please forgive us, but our country is not perfect.... it will make us very happy if you enjoy. Keep your hearts in our people, my friends. We are strangers, but we try to be kind." This is a gem of a debut. --Lesley Reed [via]
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House of Sand and Fogby Andre DubusISBN 0375727345 (0-375-72734-5)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'House of Sand and Fog'Book summary:Andre Dubus III wastes no time in capturing the dark side of the immigrant experience in America at the end of the 20th century. House of Sand and Fog opens with a highway crew composed of several nationalities picking up litter on a hot California summer day. Massoud Amir Behrani, a former colonel in the Iranian military under the Shah, reflects on his job-search efforts since arriving in the U.S. four years before: "I have spent hundreds of dollars copying my credentials; I have worn my French suits and my Italian shoes to hand-deliver my qualifications; I have waited and then called back after the correct waiting time; but there is nothing." The father of two, Behrani has spent most of the money he brought with him from Iran on an apartment and furnishings that are too expensive, desperately trying to keep up appearances in order to enhance his daughter's chances of making a good marriage. Now the daughter is married, and on impulse he sinks his remaining funds into a house he buys at auction, thus unwittingly putting himself and his family on a trajectory to disaster. The house, it seems, once belonged to Kathy Nicolo, a self-destructive alcoholic who wants it back. What starts out as a legal tussle soon escalates into a personal confrontation--with dire results.
Dubus tells his tragic tale from the viewpoints of the two main adversaries, Behrani and Kathy. To both of them, the house represents something more than just a place to live. For the colonel, it is a foot in the door of the American dream; for Kathy, a reminder of a kinder, gentler past. In prose that is simple yet evocative, House of Sand and Fog builds to its inevitable denouement, one that is painfully dark but unfailingly honest. --Alix Wilber [via]
More editions of House of Sand and Fog:
- House of Sand and Fog: ISBN 0393046974 (0-393-04697-4)
Hardcover, W W Norton & Co Inc - House of Sand and Fog: ISBN 0613364082 (0-613-36408-2)
Hardcover, Bt Bound - House of Sand and Fog: ISBN 0375708413 (0-375-70841-3)
Softcover, Random House Inc - House of Sand and Fog: ISBN 0375727345 (0-375-72734-5)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
- House of Sand and Fog: ISBN 0393046974 (0-393-04697-4)
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House of Sand and Fogby Dubus, Andre, IIIISBN 1400077354 (1-4000-7735-4)
Softcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'House of Sand and Fog'Book summary:Andre Dubus III wastes no time in capturing the dark side of the immigrant experience in America at the end of the 20th century. House of Sand and Fog opens with a highway crew composed of several nationalities picking up litter on a hot California summer day. Massoud Amir Behrani, a former colonel in the Iranian military under the Shah, reflects on his job-search efforts since arriving in the U.S. four years before: "I have spent hundreds of dollars copying my credentials; I have worn my French suits and my Italian shoes to hand-deliver my qualifications; I have waited and then called back after the correct waiting time; but there is nothing." The father of two, Behrani has spent most of the money he brought with him from Iran on an apartment and furnishings that are too expensive, desperately trying to keep up appearances in order to enhance his daughter's chances of making a good marriage. Now the daughter is married, and on impulse he sinks his remaining funds into a house he buys at auction, thus unwittingly putting himself and his family on a trajectory to disaster. The house, it seems, once belonged to Kathy Nicolo, a self-destructive alcoholic who wants it back. What starts out as a legal tussle soon escalates into a personal confrontation--with dire results.
Dubus tells his tragic tale from the viewpoints of the two main adversaries, Behrani and Kathy. To both of them, the house represents something more than just a place to live. For the colonel, it is a foot in the door of the American dream; for Kathy, a reminder of a kinder, gentler past. In prose that is simple yet evocative, House of Sand and Fog builds to its inevitable denouement, one that is painfully dark but unfailingly honest. --Alix Wilber [via]
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In Search of Zarathustra: Across Iran and Central Asia to Find the World's First Prophetby Paul KriwaczekISBN 1400031427 (1-4000-3142-7)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'In Search of Zarathustra: Across Iran and Central Asia to Find the World's First Prophet'Book summary:Long before the first Hebrew temple, before the birth of Christ or the mission of Muhammad, there lived in Persia a prophet to whom we owe the ideas of a single god, the cosmic struggle between good and evil, and the Apocalypse. His name was Zarathustra, and his teachings eventually held sway from the Indus to the Nile and spread as far as Britain.
Following Zarathustras elusive trail back through time and across the Islamic, Christian, and Jewish worlds, Paul Kriwaczek uncovers his legacy at a wedding ceremony in present-day Central Asia, in the Cathar heresy of medieval France, and among the mystery cults of the Roman empire. He explores pre-Muslim Iran and Central Asia, ultimately bringing us face to face with the prophet himself, a teacher whose radical humility shocked and challenged his age, and whose teachings have had an enduring effect on Western thought. The result is a tour de force of travel and historical inquiry by an adventurer in the classic tradition. [via]More editions of In Search of Zarathustra: Across Iran and Central Asia to Find the World's First Prophet:
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In the Rose Garden of the Martyrs: A Memoir of Iranby Christopher de BellaigueISBN 0060935367 (0-06-093536-7)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'In the Rose Garden of the Martyrs: A Memoir of Iran'Book summary:The history of Iran in the late twentieth century is a chronicle of religious fervor and violent change -- from the Islamic Revolution that ousted the Shah in favor of a rigid fundamentalist government to the bloody eight-year war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq. But what happened to the hostage-takers, the suicidal holy warriors, the martyrs, and the mullahs responsible for the now moribund revolution? Is modern Iran a society at peace with itself and the world, or truly a dangerous spoke in the "Axis of Evil"?
Christopher de Bellaigue, a Western journalist married to an Iranian woman and a longtime resident of a prosperous suburb of Tehran, offers a stunning insider's view of a culture hitherto hidden from American eyes, and reveals the true hearts and minds of an extraordinary people.
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In the Walled Gardensby Anahita FirouzISBN 0316169013 (0-316-16901-3)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co
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The Iranians: Persia, Islam and the Soul of a Nationby Sandra MacKeyISBN 0452275636 (0-452-27563-6)
Softcover, Plume
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Iranians: Persia, Islam and the Soul of a Nation'Book summary:The Iranians chronicles the history of the Iranian people, from the "glory days" of Persia to the overthrow of Mohammed Riza Shah and the rise of the Ayatollah Khomeini. Through many centuries, Islamic Iran fell repeatedly to invaders--Turks, Mongols, Afghans, Russians, and the British--only to spring back and reassert its cultural and spiritual autonomy while absorbing elements of other civilizations. But after the 1950s, rapid modernization disturbed every facet of Iranian life. Mackey shows how Iran's pendulum swung from nationalism to monarchism to rigid Shia fundamentalism, while also offering harsh judgment of Western attitudes and policies toward Iran. [via]
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James Clavell's WhirlwindISBN 1555600506 (1-55560-050-6)
Hardcover, McGraw-Hill
Find This BookBook summary:A thriller revolving around three weeks of fanaticism, passion, self-sacrifice and heartbreak in Tehran in February 1979. An epic, abundant in sub-plots, characters, intrigue and atmosphere. [via]
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James Clavell's Whirlwindby James ClavellISBN 0380703122 (0-380-70312-2)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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Journey from the Land of Noby Ruya HakkakiyanISBN 1400046114 (1-4000-4611-4)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Journey from the Land of No'Book summary:We stormed every classroom, inscribed our slogans on the blackboard . . . Never had mayhem brought more peace. All our lives we had been taught the virtues of behaving, and now we were discovering the importance of misbehaving. Too much fear had tainted our days. Too many afternoons had passed in silence, listening to a fanatics diatribes. We were rebelling because we were not evil, we had not sinned, and we knew nothing of the apocalypse. . . . This was 1979, the year that showed us we could make our own destinies. We were rebelling because rebelling was all we could do to quell the rage in our teenage veins. Together as girls we found the courage we had been told was not in us.
In Journey from the Land of No Roya Hakakian recalls her childhood and adolescence in prerevolutionary Iran with candor and verve. The result is a beautifully written coming-of-age story about one deeply intelligent and perceptive girls attempt to nd an authentic voice of her own at a time of cultural closing and repression. Remarkably, she manages to re-create
a time and place dominated by religious fanaticism, violence, and fear with an open heart and often with great humor.
Hakakian was twelve years old in 1979 when the revolution swept through Tehran. The daughter of an esteemed poet, she grew up in a household that hummed with intellectual life. Family gatherings were punctuated by witty, satirical exchanges and spontaneous recitations of poetry. But the Hakakians were also part of the very small Jewish population in Iran who witnessed the iron fist of the Islamic fundamentalists increasingly tightening its grip. It is with the innocent confusion of youth that Roya describes her discovery of a swastika a plus sign gone awry, a dark reptile with four hungry claws painted on the wall near her home. As a schoolgirl she watched as friends accused of reading blasphemous books were escorted from class by Islamic Society guards, never to return. Only much later did Roya learn that she was spared a similar fate because her teacher admired her writing.
Hakakian relates in the most poignant, and at times painful, ways what life was like for women after the country fell into the hands of Islamic fundamentalists who had declared an insidious war against them, but we see it all through the eyes of a strong, youthful optimist who somehow came up in the world believing that she was different, knowing she was special. At her loneliest, Roya discovers the consolations of writing while sitting on the rooftop of her house late at night. There, pen in hand, I led my own chorus of words, with a melody of my own making. And she discovers the craft that would ultimately enable her to find her own voice and become her own person.
A wonderfully evocative story, Journey from the Land of No reveals an Iran most readers have not encountered and marks the debut of a stunning new talent. [via]More editions of Journey from the Land of No:
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Journey From The Land Of No: A Girlhood Caught In Revolutionary Iranby Roya HakakianISBN 0609810308 (0-609-81030-8)
Softcover, Three Rivers Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Journey From The Land Of No: A Girlhood Caught In Revolutionary Iran'Book summary:From the Hardcover
We stormed every classroom, inscribed our slogans on the blackboard . . . Never had mayhem brought more peace. All our lives we had been taught the virtues of behaving, and now we were discovering the importance of misbehaving. Too much fear had tainted our days. Too many afternoons had passed in silence, listening to a fanatics diatribes. We were rebelling because we were not evil, we had not sinned, and we knew nothing of the apocalypse. . . . This was 1979, the year that showed us we could make our own destinies. We were rebelling because rebelling was all we could do to quell the rage in our teenage veins. Together as girls we found the courage we had been told was not in us.
In Journey from the Land of No Roya Hakakian recalls her childhood and adolescence in prerevolutionary Iran with candor and verve. The result is a beautifully written coming-of-age story about one deeply intelligent and perceptive girls attempt to �nd an authentic voice of her own at a time of cultural closing and repression. Remarkably, she manages to re-create a time and place dominated by religious fanaticism, violence, and fear with an open heart and often with great humor.
Hakakian was twelve years old in 1979 when the revolution swept through Tehran. The daughter of an esteemed poet, she grew up in a household that hummed with intellectual life. Family gatherings were punctuated by witty, satirical exchanges and spontaneous recitations of poetry. But the Hakakians were also part of the very small Jewish population in Iran who witnessed the iron fist of the Islamic fundamentalists increasingly tightening its grip. It is with the innocent confusion of youth that Roya describes her discovery of a swastika a plus sign gone awry, a dark reptile with four hungry claws painted on the wall near her home. As a schoolgirl she watched as friends accused of reading blasphemous books were escorted from class by Islamic Society guards, never to return. Only much later did Roya learn that she was spared a similar fate because her teacher admired her writing.
Hakakian relates in the most poignant, and at times painful, ways what life was like for women after the country fell into the hands of Islamic fundamentalists who had declared an insidious war against them, but we see it all through the eyes of a strong, youthful optimist who somehow came up in the world believing that she was different, knowing she was special. At her loneliest, Roya discovers the consolations of writing while sitting on the rooftop of her house late at night. There, pen in hand, I led my own chorus of words, with a melody of my own making. And she discovers the craft that would ultimately enable her to find her own voice and become her own person.
A wonderfully evocative story, Journey from the Land of No reveals an Iran most readers have not encountered and marks the debut of a stunning new talent. [via]More editions of Journey From The Land Of No: A Girlhood Caught In Revolutionary Iran:
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Lipstick Jihad: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America And American in Iranby Azadeh MoaveniISBN 1586483781 (1-58648-378-1)
Softcover, Public Affairs
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lipstick Jihad: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America And American in Iran'Book summary:As far back as she can remember, Azadeh Moaveni has felt at odds with her tangled identity as an Iranian-American. In suburban America, Azadeh lived in two worlds. At home, she was the daughter of the Iranian exile community, serving tea, clinging to tradition, and dreaming of Tehran. Outside, she was a California girl who practiced yoga and listened to Madonna. For years, she ignored the tense standoff between her two cultures. But college magnified the clash between Iran and America, and after graduating, she moved to Iran as a journalist. This is the story of her search for identity, between two cultures cleaved apart by a violent history. It is also the story of Iran, a restive land lost in the twilight of its revolution.[via]
Moaveni's homecoming falls in the heady days of the country's reform movement, when young people demonstrated in the streets and shouted for the Islamic regime to end. In these tumultuous times, she struggles to build a life in a dark country, wholly unlike the luminous, saffron and turquoise-tinted Iran of her imagination. As she leads us through the drug-soaked, underground parties of Tehran, into the hedonistic lives of young people desperate for change, Moaveni paints a rare portrait of Iran's rebellious next generation. The landscape of her Tehran ski slopes, fashion shows, malls and cafes is populated by a cast of young people whose exuberance and despair brings the modern reality of Iran to vivid life.More editions of Lipstick Jihad: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America And American in Iran:
The Mantle of the Prophet : Iranby Roy MottahedehISBN 0394748654 (0-394-74865-4)
Softcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iranby Roy P. MottahedehISBN 1851682341 (1-85168-234-1)
Softcover, Oneworld Pubns Ltd
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Modern Iran: Roots And Results of Revolutionby Nikki R. Keddie, Yann RichardISBN 0300121059 (0-300-12105-9)
Softcover, Yale Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Modern Iran: Roots And Results of Revolution'Book summary:In this revised and expanded version of Nikki Keddie's work, "Roots of Revolution", the author brings the story of modern Iran to the present day, exploring the political, cultural, and social changes of the past quarter century. Keddie provides insightful commentary on the Iran-Iraq war, the Persian Gulf War, and the effects of 9/11 and Iran's strategic relationship with the US. She also discusses developments in education, health care, the arts and the role of women. [via]
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My Sister, Guard Your Veil. My Brother, Guard your Eyes: Uncensored Iranian Voicesby Lila Azam ZanganehISBN 0807004634 (0-8070-0463-4)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin
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My Uncle Napoleonby Dick Davis, Iraj Pizishkzad, Azar NafisiISBN 0812974433 (0-8129-7443-3)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'My Uncle Napoleon'Book summary:The most beloved Iranian novel of the twentieth century
God forbid, Ive fallen in love with Layli! So begins the farce of our narrators life, one spent in a large extended Iranian family lorded over by the blustering, paranoid patriarch, Dear Uncle Napoleon. When Uncle Napoleons least-favorite nephew falls for his daughter, Layli, family fortunes are reversed, feuds fired up and resolved, and assignations attempted and thwarted.
First published in Iran in the 1970s and adapted into a hugely successful television series, this beloved novel is now Suggested Reading in Azar Nafisis Reading Lolita in Tehran. My Uncle Napoleon is a timeless and universal satire of first love and family intrigue. [via]More editions of My Uncle Napoleon:
Neither East Nor West: One Woman's Journey Through the Islamic Republic of Iranby Christiane BirdISBN 0671027565 (0-671-02756-5)
Softcover, Washington Square Pr
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The New Food of Life: A Book of Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and Ceremoniesby Najmieh Khalili BatmanglijISBN 0934211345 (0-934211-34-5)
Hardcover, Mage Pub
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Not Without My Daughterby Betty MahmoodyISBN 0312925883 (0-312-92588-3)
Softcover, St Martins Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Not Without My Daughter'Book summary:In August 1984, Michigan housewife Betty Mahmoody accompanied her husband to his native Iran for a two-week vacation. To her horror, she found herself and her four-year-old daughter, Mahtob, virtual prisoners of a man rededicated to his Shiite Moslem faith, in a land where women are near-slaves and Americans are despised. Their only hope for escape lay in a dangerous underground that would not take her child...[via]
Now the true story of this courageous woman and her breathtaking odyssey bursts upon the screen in the Pathe Entertainment production starring Academy Award-winner Sally Field!
Not Without My Daughter is a Literary Guild Alternate Selection. -
On Wings of Eaglesby Ken FollettISBN 0451163532 (0-451-16353-2)
Softcover, Signet
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› Find signed collectible books: 'On Wings of Eagles'Book summary:The #1 International Bestseller now in trade paperbackwith 16 pages of photos.[via]Number-one bestselling author Ken Follett tells the inspiring, true story of the Middle East hostage crisis that began in 1979, and of the unconventional means Ross Perot used to save his countrymen.
More editions of On Wings of Eagles:
- On Wings of Eagles: ISBN 0451213092 (0-451-21309-2)
Softcover, New Amer Library - On Wings of Eagles: ISBN 0451131517 (0-451-13151-7)
Softcover, New Amer Library - On Wings of Eagles: ISBN 0688023711 (0-688-02371-1)
Hardcover, Harpercollins - On Wings of Eagles: ISBN 0816136424 (0-8161-3642-4)
Hardcover, G K Hall & Co - On Wings of Eagles: ISBN 0451163532 (0-451-16353-2)
Softcover, Signet
- On Wings of Eagles: ISBN 0451213092 (0-451-21309-2)
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Persepolisby Marjane SatrapiISBN 1594970351 (1-59497-035-1)
Softcover, Public Square Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Persepolis'Book summary:NA [via]
More editions of Persepolis:
- Persepolis: ISBN 0375423966 (0-375-42396-6)
Softcover, Pantheon Books - Persepolis: ISBN 037571457X (0-375-71457-X)
Softcover, Pantheon Books - Persepolis: ISBN 0375422307 (0-375-42230-7)
Hardcover, Random House Inc - Persepolis: ISBN 8484315614 (84-8431-561-4)
Softcover, Norma Editorial Sa - Persepolis: ISBN 1594970351 (1-59497-035-1)
Softcover, Public Square Books
- Persepolis: ISBN 0375423966 (0-375-42396-6)
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Persepolis 2: The Story of a Returnby Marjane SatrapiISBN 0375714669 (0-375-71466-9)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return'Book summary:Picking up the thread where her debut memoir-in-comics concluded, Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return details Marjane Satrapi's experiences as a young Iranian woman cast abroad by political turmoil in her native country. Older, if not exactly wiser, Marjane reconciles her upbringing in war-shattered Tehran with new surroundings and friends in Austria. Whether living in the company of nuns or as the sole female in a house of eight gay men, she creates a niche for herself with friends and acquaintances who feel equally uneasy with their place in the world.
After a series of unfortunate choices and events leave her literally living in the street for three months, Marjane decides to return to her native Iran. Here, she is reunited with her family, whose liberalism and emphasis on Marjane's personal worth exert as strong an influence as the eye-popping wonders of Europe. Having grown accustomed to recreational drugs, partying, and dating, Marjane now dons a veil and adjusts to a society officially divided by gender and guided by fundamentalism. Emboldened by the example of her feisty grandmother, she tests the bounds of the morality enforced on the streets and in the classrooms. With a new appreciation for the political and spiritual struggles of her fellow Iranians, she comes to understand that "one person leaving her house while asking herself, 'is my veil in place?' no longer asks herself 'where is my freedom of speech?'"
Satrapi's starkly monochromatic drawing style and the keenly observed facial expressions of her characters provide the ideal graphic environment from which to appeal to our sympathies. Bereft of fine detail, this graphic novel guides the reader's attention instead toward a narrative rich with empathy. Don't be fooled by the glowering self-portrait of the author on the back flap; its nearly impossible to read Persepolis 2 without feeling warmth toward Marjane Satrapi. --Ryan Boudinot [via]
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The Persian Brideby James BuchanISBN 0618219234 (0-618-21923-4)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Persian Bride'Book summary:Luminous, exotic, terrifying, and brutal, The Persian Bride is a complex and worldly revelation, a story that, like the river that runs through the city of Isfahan, "carries on its surface traces of an earlier existence, and may indeed exist to submerge them, like the plane leaves it carries down in autumn or the pieces of its burst spring dwelling." In 1974, 18-year-old John Pitt arrives in Iran. By turns violent and introspective, James Buchan's narrator is "a mere instrument of change in a situation made brittle by violence, treachery and the veil." The chador is in Islamic society a barrier both physical and literal, shielding women from the transgressive male gaze. When John crosses that barrier by falling desperately in love with and marrying Shirin Farameh, the daughter of a general in the Iranian air force, all the forces of history descend upon him.
In his sixth novel, Buchan coaxes forth shadows--political, personal, spiritual--to engulf both narrator and reader. Past and present, reality and illusion, form the warp and weft of a story as intricately woven as the Persian rugs on which Shirin treads (an obvious, but accurate, metaphor). Buchan was a foreign correspondent for 10 years, so it isn't surprising that he should offer so solid a portrait of a world on the brink. What is surprising, and infinitely rewarding, is the bittersweet poignancy with which he brings that world to brilliant and supple life. --Kelly Flynn [via]
Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iranby Elaine SciolinoISBN 0743217799 (0-7432-1779-9)
Softcover, Free Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran'Book summary:In 1979, a clerical revolution in Iran swept aside the inarguably corrupt government of Shah Reza Pahlavi and set in motion events that would make that nation a world pariah. In the place of one dictatorship came another, one led "by an old bearded cleric in a turban and cloak whose answer to the king's injustice was to wrap the country in a populist message of promise and smother it with an intolerant version of Islam."
So writes Elaine Sciolino, a reporter for The New York Times who entered Iran with the Ayatollah Khomeini and who remained there for more than 20 years, providing American readers with memorable accounts that were less, it seemed, about politics and religion than about human nature. For Iran is a mass of contradictions, she writes, a country many of whose leaders press for forward-looking change while serving a government that seeks a return to the distant past, and whose citizens constantly seek ways to experiment "with two highly volatile chemicals--Islam and democracy." In her book, Sciolino travels the length and breadth of Iran, interviewing national leaders and citizens, turning up stories of resistance and accommodation that are at once hopeful and cautious. (For instance, she writes, "Personal expression is entirely possible in Iran. You just have to be careful when and where you engage in it, and you have to be ready for nasty surprises when the rules change.")
Iran has been overlooked for too long, Sciolino suggests. Her book, both sympathetic and critical, makes a useful guide for those outside the country who seek to understand it better. --Gregory McNamee [via]
More editions of Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran:
- Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran: ISBN 0743284798 (0-7432-8479-8)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster - Persian Mirrors : The Elusive Face of Iran: ISBN 0684862905 (0-684-86290-5)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster - Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran: ISBN 0743217799 (0-7432-1779-9)
Softcover, Free Pr
- Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran: ISBN 0743284798 (0-7432-8479-8)
The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran And Americaby KENNETH POLLACKISBN 1400063159 (1-4000-6315-9)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran And America'Book summary:In his highly influential book The Threatening Storm, bestselling author Kenneth Pollack both informed and defined the national debate about Iraq. Now, in The Persian Puzzle, published to coincide with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Iran hostage crisis, he examines the behind-the-scenes story of the tumultuous relationship between Iran and the United States, and weighs options for the future.
Here Pollack, a former CIA analyst and National Security Council official, brings his keen analysis and insider perspective to the long and ongoing clash between the United States and Iran, beginning with the fall of the shah and the seizure of the American embassy in Tehran in 1979. Pollack examines all the major events in U.S.-Iran relationsincluding the hostage crisis, the U.S. tilt toward Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, the Iran-Contra scandal, American-Iranian military tensions in 1987 and 1988, the covert Iranian war against U.S. interests in the Persian Gulf that culminated in the 1996 Khobar Towers terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia, and recent U.S.-Iran skirmishes over Afghanistan and Iraq.
He explains the strategies and motives from American and Iranian perspectives and tells how each crisis colored the thinking of both countries leadership as they shaped and reshaped their policies over time. Pollack also describes efforts by moderates of various stripes to try to find some way past animosities to create a new dynamic in Iranian-American relations, only to find that when one side was ready for such a step, the other side fell short.
With balanced tone and insight, Pollack explains how the United States and Iran reached this impasse; why this relationship is critical to regional, global, and U.S. interests; and what basic political choices are available as we deal with this important but deeply troubled country.
From the Hardcover edition. [via]More editions of The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran And America:
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Pomegranate Soupby Marsha MehranISBN 1400062411 (1-4000-6241-1)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Pomegranate Soup'Book summary:Beneath the holy mountain Croagh Patrick, in damp and lovely County Mayo, sits the small, sheltered village of Ballinacroagh. To the exotic Aminpour sisters, Ireland looks like a much-needed safe haven. It has been seven years since Marjan Aminpour fled Iran with her younger sisters, Bahar and Layla, and she hopes that in Ballinacroagh, a land of crazed sheep and dizzying roads, they might finally find a home.
From the kitchen of an old pastry shop on Main Mall, the sisters set about creating a Persian oasis. Soon sensuous wafts of cardamom, cinnamon, and saffron float through the streetsan exotic aroma that announces the opening of the Babylon Café, and a shock to a town that generally subsists on boiled cabbage and Guinness served at the local tavern. And it is an affront to the senses of Ballinacroaghs uncrowned king, Thomas McGuire. After trying to buy the old pastry shop for years and failing, Thomas is enraged to find it occupiedand by foreigners, no less.
But the mysterious, spicy fragrances work their magic on the townsfolk, and soon, business is booming. Marjan is thrilled with the demand for her red lentil soup, abgusht stew, and rosewater baklavaand with the transformation in her sisters. Young Layla finds first love, and even tense, haunted Bahar seems to be less nervous.
And in the stand-up-comedian-turned-priest Father Fergal Mahoney, the gentle, lonely widow Estelle Delmonico, and the headstrong hairdresser Fiona Athey, the sisters find a merry band of supporters against the close-minded opposition of less welcoming villagers stuck in their ways. But the idyll is soon broken when the past rushes back to threaten the Amnipours once more, and the lives they left behind in revolution-era Iran bleed into the present.
Infused with the textures and scents, trials and triumph,s of two distinct cultures, Pomegranate Soup is an infectious novel of magical realism. This richly detailed story, highlighted with delicious recipes, is a delectable journey into the heart of Persian cooking and Irish living. [via] -
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Booksby Azar NafisiISBN 081297106X (0-8129-7106-X)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books'Book summary:An inspired blend of memoir and literary criticism, Reading Lolita in Tehran is a moving testament to the power of art and its ability to change and improve people's lives. In 1995, after resigning from her job as a professor at a university in Tehran due to repressive policies, Azar Nafisi invited seven of her best female students to attend a weekly study of great Western literature in her home. Since the books they read were officially banned by the government, the women were forced to meet in secret, often sharing photocopied pages of the illegal novels. For two years they met to talk, share, and "shed their mandatory veils and robes and burst into color." Though most of the women were shy and intimidated at first, they soon became emboldened by the forum and used the meetings as a springboard for debating the social, cultural, and political realities of living under strict Islamic rule. They discussed their harassment at the hands of "morality guards," the daily indignities of living under the Ayatollah Khomeini's regime, the effects of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, love, marriage, and life in general, giving readers a rare inside look at revolutionary Iran. The books were always the primary focus, however, and they became "essential to our lives: they were not a luxury but a necessity," she writes.
Threaded into the memoir are trenchant discussions of the work of Vladimir Nabokov, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jane Austen, and other authors who provided the women with examples of those who successfully asserted their autonomy despite great odds. The great works encouraged them to strike out against authoritarianism and repression in their own ways, both large and small: "There, in that living room, we rediscovered that we were also living, breathing human beings; and no matter how repressive the state became, no matter how intimidated and frightened we were, like Lolita we tried to escape and to create our own little pockets of freedom," she writes. In short, the art helped them to survive. --Shawn Carkonen [via]
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The Road to Oxianaby Robert Byron, Rory Stewart, Paul FussellISBN 0195325605 (0-19-532560-5)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Road to Oxiana'Book summary:In 1933 the delightfully eccentric Robert Byron set out on a journey through the Middle East via Beirut, Jerusalem, Baghdad and Teheran to Oxiana -the country of the Oxus, the ancient name for the river Amu Darya which forms part of the border between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. His arrival at his destination, the legendary tower of Qabus, although a wonder in itself, it not nearly so amazing as the thoroughly captivating, at times zany, record of his adventures.
In addition to its entertainment value, The Road to Oxiana also serves as a rare account of the architectural treasures of a region now inaccessible to most Western travellers. When Paul Fussell "rediscovered" The Road to Oxiana in his recent book Abroad, he whetted the appetite of a whole new generation of readers. In his new introduction, written especially for this volume, Fussell writes: "Reading the book is like stumbling into a modern museum of literary kinds presided over by a benign if eccentric curator. Here armchair travellers will find newspaper clippings, public signs and notices, official forms, letters, diary entries, essays on current politics, lyric passages, historical and archaeological dissertations, brief travel narratives (usually of comic-awful delays and disasters), and--the triumph of the book--at least twenty superb comic dialogues, some of them virtually playlets, complete with stage directions and musical scoring." [via] 
Searching for Hassan: An American Family's Journey Home to Iranby Terence WardISBN 1400032237 (1-4000-3223-7)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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Shah of Shahsby Ryszard KapuscinskiISBN 0679738010 (0-679-73801-0)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Shah of Shahs'Book summary:In Shah of Shahs Kapuscinski brings a mythographer's perspective and a novelist's virtuosity to bear on the overthrow of the last Shah of Iran, one of the most infamous of the United States' client-dictators, who resolved to transform his country into "a second America in a generation," only to be toppled virtually overnight. From his vantage point at the break-up of the old regime, Kapuscinski gives us a compelling history of conspiracy, repression, fanatacism, and revolution.
Translated from the Polish by William R. Brand and Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand. [via] 
Warring Souls: Youth, Media, And Martyrdom in Post-Revolution Iranby Roxanne VarziISBN 0822337215 (0-8223-3721-5)
Softcover, Duke Univ Pr
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We Are Iranby Nasrin AlaviISBN 1933368055 (1-933368-05-5)
Softcover, Soft Skull Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'We Are Iran'Book summary:In September 2001, a young Iranian journalist, Hossein Derakhshan, created one of the first weblogs in Farsi. When he also devised a simple how-to-blog guide for Iranians, it unleashed a torrent of hitherto unheard opinions. There are now 64,000 blogs in Farsi, and Nasrin Alavi has painstakingly reviewed them all, weaving the most powerful and provocative into a striking picture of the flowering of dissent in Iran. From one bloggers blasting of the Supreme Leader as a pimp to anothers mourning for an identity crushed by the stifling protection of her male relatives, this collection functions not only as an archive of Iranians thoughts on their country, culture, religion, and the rest of the world, but also as an alternative recent history of Iran. Government crackdowns may soon still these voices in February 2005, one blogger was sentenced to 14 years in jail and We Are Iran may serve as the only serious record of their existence.[via]More editions of We Are Iran:
Whirlwindby James ClavellISBN 0688066631 (0-688-06663-1)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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The Women of Deh Koh: Lives in an Iranian Villageby Erika FriedlISBN 0140149937 (0-14-014993-7)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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Spanish
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La Gran Guerra Por La Civilizacion/the Great War of Civilizationby Robert FiskISBN 8423337871 (84-233-3787-1)
Hardcover, Planeta Pub Corp
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Leer 'Lolita' En Teheran / Reading Lolita In Teheranby Azar NafisiISBN 8476696310 (84-7669-631-0)
Softcover, Oceano De Mexico
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Leer Lolita En Teheranby Azar NafisiISBN 8496333159 (84-96333-15-9)
Softcover, Planeta Pub Corp
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Persepolis 2by Marjane SatrapiISBN 8484315622 (84-8431-562-2)
Softcover, Norma Editorial Sa
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French
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Broderiesby Marjane SatrapiISBN 2844140955 (2-84414-095-5)
Hardcover, Association
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