Salam Pax: The Clandestine Diary of an Ordinary Iraqi
10 best books like Salam Pax: The Clandestine Diary of an Ordinary Iraqi (Salam Pax): The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, The Sword in the Stone, Born Palestinian, Born Black, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception, The Book of Merlyn, Heaven's Coast: A Memoir, The Assistant, Race and the Education of Desire: Foucault's History of Sexuality and the Colonial Order of Things, Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature
The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating
Author | Elisabeth Tova Bailey |
ISBN | 1565126068 |
In a work that beautifully demonstrates the rewards of closely observing nature, Elisabeth Bailey shares an inspiring and intimate story of her uncommon encounter with a Neohelix albolabris —a common woodland snail.
While an illness keeps her bedridden, Bailey watches a wild snail that...
"Learn. That is the only thing that never fails."--Merlyn the Wizard
Before there was a famous king named Arthur, there was a curious boy named Wart and a kind old wizard named Merlyn. Transformed by Merlyn into the forms of his fantasy, Wart learns the value of history from a snake, of education...
Born Palestinian, Born Black
Author | Suheir Hammad |
ISBN | 0863162444 |
Suheir Hammad is someone who crossed my path quite by accident in a bookstore in the mid-1990s. There I espied her book of poems, "Born Palestinian, Born Black." I glanced at some of the poems and liked their content.
Then several years elapsed before Suheir Hammad came to the fore of consciousness...
Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
Author | Benedict Anderson |
ISBN | 0860915468 |
What makes people love and die for nations, as well as hate and kill in their name? While many studies have been written on nationalist political movements, the sense of nationality--the personal and cultural feeling of belonging to a nation--has not received proportionate attention. In this widely...
The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception
Author | Michel Foucault |
ISBN | 0679753346 |
Librarian note: an alternate cover for this edition can be found here.
In the eighteenth century, medicine underwent a mutation. For the first time, medical knowledge took on a precision that had formerly belonged only to mathematics. The body became something that could be mapped. Disease...
This magical account of King Arthur's last night on earth spent weeks on the New York Times best-seller list following its publication in 1977.
Even in addressing the profound issues of war and peace, The Book of Merlyn retains the life and sparkle for which White is known. The tale brings Arthur...
Author | Mark Doty |
ISBN | 0060928050 |
The year is 1989 and Mark Doty's life has reached a state of enviable equilibrium. His reputation as a poet of formidable talent is growing, he enjoys his work as a college professor and, perhaps most importantly, he is deeply in love with his partner of many years, Wally Roberts. The harmonious existence...
Author | Bernard Malamud |
ISBN | 0374504849 |
Bernard Malamud’s second novel, originally published in 1957, is the story of Morris Bober, a grocer in postwar Brooklyn, who “wants better” for himself and his family. First two robbers appear and hold him up; then things take a turn for the better when broken-nosed Frank Alpine becomes his...
Author | Ann Laura Stoler |
ISBN | 0822316900 |
Michel Foucault’s History of Sexuality has been one of the most influential books of the last two decades. It has had an enormous impact on cultural studies and work across many disciplines on gender, sexuality, and the body. Bringing a new set of questions to this key work, Ann Laura Stoler examines...
Author | Janice A. Radway |
ISBN | 0807843490 |
Originally published in 1984, Reading the Romance challenges popular (and often demeaning) myths about why romantic fiction, one of publishing's most lucrative categories, captivates millions of women readers. Among those who have disparaged romance reading are feminists, literary critics,...
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Islam
Author | Yahiya Emerick |
ISBN | 0028642333 |
I understand more about Islam than before. But I had trouble with the author. He seemed to be always defending Islam. For example he says the Taliban had a religious right for demolishing the ancient Buddha statues in Afghanistan because there are no Buddhists in Afghanistan anymore, and the Quran teaches...
Food for Our Grandmothers: Writings by Arab-American and Arab-Canadian Feminists
Author | Joanna Kadi |
ISBN | 0896084892 |
This is my favorite book. Period.
Every time I've tried to sit down and write a review for this volume, I've given up because there's so much to say. I loved every page of it from the introduction to the index. The recipes made me smile at the beginning of each chapter, and made it more real: someone...
Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq (Updated Edition)
Author | Kanan Makiya |
ISBN | 0520214390 |
First published in 1989, just before the Gulf War broke out, Republic of Fear was the only book that explained the motives of the Saddam Hussein regime in invading and annexing Kuwait. This edition, updated in 1998, has a substantial introduction focusing on the changes in Hussein's regime since the...
Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity
Author | Marc Augé |
ISBN | 1859840515 |
An ever-increasing proportion of our lives is spent in supermarkets, airports and hotels, on motorways or in front of TVs, computer and cash machines. This invasion of the world by what Marc Auge calls ‘non-space’ results in a profound alteration of awareness: something we perceive, but only...
Author | Diana Abu-Jaber |
ISBN | 0393324222 |
In Diana Abu-Jaber's "impressive, entertaining" (Chicago Tribune) first novel, a small, poor-white community in upstate New York becomes home to the transplanted Jordanian family of Matussem Ramoud: his grown daughters, Jemorah and Melvina; his sister Fatima; and her husband, Zaeed. The widower...