100 Best Middle East Books of All Time

James AltucherExcellent novel. (Source)

Ann Miura-KoI would encourage people to read it because it gives you a sense of Afghanistan’s incredible history and the role women have played within that history (Source)

James AltucherExcellent novel. (Source)

Vanessa KengI've always loved fiction - mainly crime and legal thrillers, but there's something wonderful about reading a completely different style of writing from what I'm used to. I found myself absorbed in the narrative of guilt and love in The Kite Runner, and The Curious Incident told me a story from a completely different perspective. (Source)

Magda MarcuI’m currently reading “The Kite Runner”. I never have expectations from books, I let them surprise me as I get into the story. Learning about characteristics of different cultures, in this case the Afghan one, it’s one aspect I am interested in. (Source)

Pooneh GhoddoosiI read the book and it was great, but more people saw the film because it was nominated for an Academy Award. And after seeing the movie, so many people I knew came up to me and told me that they thought it was exactly the story of my life. And not just me, but most of my Iranian friends had the same feeling of “Oh God, that could have been me, I could have written that book – it could have been... (Source)

Bryan CallenI love [this author]. (Source)

Mary HabeckThis is a fantastic account of the origins of al Qaeda, the individuals who laid the foundations of the organisation and why they carried out 9/11. (Source)

Peter TaylorIf anybody wishes to understand what Al-Qaeda is, where it came from and what it is trying to do, I think that this is the key book to read. (Source)

Pooneh GhoddoosiYes she was. (Source)

Adrienne KisnerMalala’s story of triumph is a battle cry for girls (and boys) everywhere. Education can set you free. (Source)

Jennifer SteilGreg Mortenson has changed literally thousands and thousands of lives. (Source)

Nicholas KristofI think Greg does a very good job of providing a more nuanced portrait of the Islamic world and what is possible in it. (Source)

Gretchen PetersI went to a refugee camp after 9/11 where people were living in tents and boiling grass to make tea and at least one family offered to let me sleep in their tent. (Source)

Demetri SevastopuloOn a totally different topic, this book by @stephenkinzer is a great look at US & UK relations with #Iran before the revolution. Lots of interesting similarities with the situation today. https://t.co/rlv8Ip0Kjn https://t.co/gz7InQkMk4 (Source)

Chris AbbottKinzer gives a good and quick introduction to Iranian history and its relationships with America and Britain. (Source)

Naval RavikantIt actually read like a modern-day poetic religious tome. Up there with the Bhagavad-gita, the Tao Te Ching, The Bible, The Qur’an. It was written in that style where it had that feel of religiosity and truth, but it was very approachable and beautiful and non-denominational and non-secretarian. I really liked that. I loved that book. He has a gift for poetically describing what children are... (Source)

Kaci Lambe KaiI also really love The Prophet by Gibran. He's a phenomenal writer and poet. (Source)

Nadia Al SheikhThe Prophet by Kahlil Gibran is a beautiful illustration of wisdom written in a story telling that takes you into a mysterious journey, I never get tired of reading it. (Source)

Robin Yassin-KassabThis is the first English-language epic novel to comprehensively express the Palestinian tragedy….It is a great interpenetration of fiction and documentary. Although the subject matter is necessarily political, it remains a great work of fiction and the characters are not ciphers for a political message. (Source)

Eugene RoganHourani picked up on Khaldun’s cyclical notion of the rise and fall of Arab empires, and these almost Weberian notions of loyalty, as the key themes with which to weave a history of the Arab peoples. (Source)

Tarek OsmanThe key illuminating point is how the culture that has emerged in that part of the world has gathered those people and really united them by a common thread. (Source)

Daniel EkIt was fascinating to talk to [the author] about how this book came to be such a hit—he never backed down, and he allowed people to read it for free in order to then boost sales—much like how Spotify’s freemium model was perceived in the early days. (Source)

Eric RipertSpeaks of everyone having an ultimate goal in life, but most of us are too afraid to pursue it. The encouragement to fulfill your dreams is very inspirational! (Source)

Brené BrownThere's a great quote in [this book]: When you're on the right path the universe conspires to help you! (Source)

David CortrightFor me, this is the best introduction to Islam. I think all of us in the West are trying to learn more about Islamic culture and religion. Aslan writes so beautifully about what Islam represents – its theological, cultural and economic dimensions. It’s the most eye-opening and illuminating book I’ve read on the subject. It gave me a sense of respect for Islamic culture and the great scientific... (Source)

Ben ShapiroA really terrific book. [...] It's sort of the history of the founding of Israel. (Source)

Stephen WaltExodus is a book that had a profound impact on how many Americans thought about Israel. (Source)

Michael GoldfarbThe book was structured in such a way that it dealt with the Holocaust and the politics of establishing Israel. (Source)

Issandr El AmraniI chose this book because I think the weight of history and the historical context is really important. There have been a number of general histories of the Arab world. What Eugene Rogan does in this book is to provide a very well written, comprehensive and general history of the Arab world in modern times. What he does well is to highlight how much interaction there has been in the Arab world... (Source)

Daniyal MueenuddinWell, it’s an odd kind of book. I think what’s especially useful about it is the way in which it describes the transformation in this man’s thinking. The protagonist is somebody who had been living in New York and been a banker and he gradually turns into, as the title says, a reluctant fundamentalist. This is something that I have seen among my friends in Pakistan. People who I have always... (Source)

Ahmede HussainThis is an amazing book, and it’s a shame that it didn’t win the Man Booker Prize [in 2007] – in my opinion it was the best of the bunch. I think it’s going to become a modern classic in five or 10 years’ time, if it’s not already regarded as one. This novel speaks for so many peoples’ experiences in the aftermath of 9/11. The prose is very tight and the title is also very clever. (Source)

Amy WaldmanYou’re right – the protagonist has a completely different profile from the humble one in Harbor. Changez is from a prestigious Pakistani family, but one without a lot of money. He comes to the United States to attend Princeton on a scholarship and then is recruited into the corporate world. The whole novel is a monologue. This character, in a café in Lahore, is talking to an unidentified... (Source)

Ayaan Hirsi AliYes. That is the good thing about it. I always get these accusations, ‘Oh, but you are just from Somalia’, your case is not representative. There are many memoirs, but again, if you tell me to reduce it to just one, I pick his. I read a review of this book and it made me buy it instantly. What I liked about it is that it is by a man. It is the story of a man who grew up as the son of a prominent... (Source)

Ghanem NuseibehBrilliant! If you want to read about Jerusalem’s history, it’s Simon’s book! https://t.co/vHyCpMu0eh (Source)

Wade DavisSomeone once asked me, if a fire burnt down my house what would be the one thing I would walk out with? And it’s a first-edition, leather-bound copy of this incredible book signed by my grandfather. My grandfather was himself a surgeon at a casualty clearing station on the Western Front. (Source)

Dan ChoiYes, it’s a book about Lawrence’s experiences during World War I, when he was stationed in North African and the Middle East. He writes about some of the lessons that he learnt from the military leaders from the Allies, and the Bedouin and tribal leaders. The book was influential to me because I can see his contribution as an Arabist. (Source)

Patrick CockburnWhen you read about Iraq, you need to know that it is a country more divided than almost anywhere else in the world. (Source)

Bryan Callen[Bryan Callen recommended this book on the podcast "The Tim Ferriss Show".] (Source)

Jeremy GreenstockRicks writes fluently and eloquently. His book shows what the Americans thought about Iraq, and what they thought the Iraqis thought. (Source)

Humphrey DaviesThe Yacoubian Builiding is celebrated, possibly even notorious, for being a real bestseller — originally in Egypt and the Arab world and subsequently in the West, in English and in many other languages. It tells the story of a building in downtown Cairo, and the changes that have affected the building and its inhabitants. So it encapsulates the last 80 years of Egyptian history and it provides a... (Source)

Robin Yassin-KassabPappe has written a great historical work on the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1947/8 and he shows that it was organised and planned, called Plan D, or plan Dalit, and he has exploded the myths that were current until his work. (Source)

Ayaan Hirsi AliThe Koran is supposed to be the words of God and the Hadith are the sayings and deeds of the prophet. The Koran has the basic commands; the Hadith or the Sunna, is a sort of manual. It is supposed to be a guideline of how to understand the Koran, because people say that it’s not explicit enough. The Hadith is a compilation of six volumes and they are called the Sahith Sitta – Sitta just means six... (Source)

Naeem Ul HaqueThe judiciary must not forget that far far above our constitution is the ultimate book of principles and that is the wholly Quran. Every judge in the country must keep a copy of Quran with translation on his/ her desk so that the judge can realise that the Law of God is Supreme. (Source)

Ahmad ThomsonWhen I accepted Islam I’d done it on the basis of meeting Shaykh Abdalqadir and the people around him, and I realised that I knew nothing about it really. So obviously one of the first things was to learn the basics – and I thought I’d better read the Qur’an because that’s the book of the Muslims! At the time I had the Arberry translation which is accurate, and which in some measure conveys the... (Source)

Bernard HaykelThis is an older book and an unusual choice. I contracted malaria when I was in Yemen doing fieldwork. Between bouts of feverish hallucination, I read this book. It’s the authority on the Arabian Desert. He ventures into The Empty Quarter, one of the great deserts of the world. Arabia was an incredibly harsh place for human beings to live. Thesiger shows how Arabs, especially nomadic Arabs, were... (Source)

Jo TatchellThis was written in the 1950s after Thesiger returned from five years of Arabian travel. He was one of the few non-indigenous people to cross “the Empty Quarter”, the desert that occupies a huge part of what is now Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It’s almost a million square kilometres of billowing amber dunes – and more terrifying than an ocean. Usually, people travelled around the... (Source)

Ryan HolidayI read this on my honeymoon (probably the only person on the beach reading it, if I had to guess). Especially when I learned after that a new introduction paragraph had been discovered only recently. His tomb may have been found recently too. Imagine if Homer’s works had only been discovered in the mid 1800’s after being lost to history for thousands of years. How crazy would that be? Reading the... (Source)

Stephen CaveGilgamesh is a hero in the ancient mould. He’s half-god, enormously strong, a bit randy, a bit dim, and he goes through adventures which embody the human experience writ large. He starts off as the king of a small kingdom, making a nuisance of himself – enforcing droit du seigneur, sleeping with women on their marriage night, pushing other men around, being a bit of an arse. So the gods make a... (Source)

Professor Frank McdonoughChristmas is coming and if you want to give a thought-provoking book to that history fan in your life then the recent books by the brilliant @peterfrankopan will satisfy. Some write books, this guy changes perceptions. https://t.co/gWZWZnv5TN (Source)

Raoul Pal@The92ers @zerohedge It’s fascinating. The Peter Frankopan book on the Silk Roads told history well from the perspective of Iran in particular (Source)

Barack ObamaAs 2018 draws to a close, I’m continuing a favorite tradition of mine and sharing my year-end lists. It gives me a moment to pause and reflect on the year through the books I found most thought-provoking, inspiring, or just plain loved. It also gives me a chance to highlight talented authors – some who are household names and others who you may not have heard of before. Here’s my best of 2018... (Source)

Stephanie FlandersIt’s about a UK-based writer whose father disappeared in Libya. (Source)

Eugene RoganFisk writes the most compassionate and engaging prose about his own experiences in Lebanon. As a journalist he seems to get underneath the skin of that society better than just about anyone I know. And it’s a book I relate to very personally, having lived for five years in Lebanon and having been forced to leave the country because of the outbreak of the civil war. So I felt very close to his... (Source)

Kanan MakiyaIraq is a country with a particularly violent history of formation. In this book you capture a flavour of some of the human complexity that history left behind. (Source)

Noah KaganI’m shocked this book was released. It shares unbelievable stories about Israel secret intelligence and perseverance. (Source)

Rory CormacIn stark contrast to some of the other books which were written by insiders, this book is 100 per cent unofficial and unauthorised. It’s written by a journalist, albeit a journalist with a history PhD. It’s based on interviews and documents that he’s been given over the years. It’s the kind of story that the Israelis didn’t want telling and, in fact, tried to prevent the book from being published. (Source)

Adam EdelenI love when a book exceeds high expectations. @KimGhattas ”Black Wave” is a book of the year. Her writing is a compelling narrative, relentlessly clear-eyed in its analysis. It recalls @tomfriedman ”Beirut to Jerusalem” as a Middle East primer for the 21st century. Bravo! https://t.co/1qblYyqb7T (Source)

Faysal Itani'Black Wave' by @KimGhattas is such an important and timely book. I'm glad it exists, and it should be required reading for anyone trying to understand how we (Islamic world/Middle east) got were we are. Big historical narratives and fascinating detail as well. (Source)

Isabella Stegeri just read it it’s a great book https://t.co/8NWa8ZXkeL (Source)

Ben ShapiroBasically a bunch of short stories. But a bunch of them are really, really compelling and interesting. [...] It's a long read but it's an easy read. (Source)

Brad FeldDaring to Drive: A Saudi Woman’s Awakening: Intense, powerful, horrifying, and inspiring all at the same time. Manal Al-Sharif is incredible. I hope I get to meet her someday – I’ll thank her for being brave enough to do what she does and to tell her story while doing it. (Source)

Raja ShehadehThis is an amazing, graphic and emotional book about the massacres carried out by the Israelis in the Gaza Strip in 1956. (Source)

Hillary ChuteJoe Sacco is the foremost figure in what he calls ‘comics journalism’ – he really established this category. (Source)

Steve CrawshawKapuściński’s writing has a poetry to it that I adore. He was a journalist, working for the Polish state news agency, writing a lot of routine stories. Books were his release, a chance to get at the inner truth of what was happening. Some have accused him of imagining too much, but I remain loyal. Fundamentally, he doesn’t distort in the big picture. He lets things speak. It’s like a playwright’s... (Source)

Jasmin DarznikKapuscinski is widely regarded as the greatest travel writer of the 20th century. Polish by birth, he witnessed some 40 revolutions and wars during his time as a journalist. He had already built a long and illustrious career when he found his way to Iran on the eve of the 1979 revolution. At that moment it was still a populist revolution rather than an Islamic one – the contours of the revolution... (Source)

Ali AnsariYes, the Shahnameh is an epic poetic rendition of what is generally described as the national myth of Iran. It is in effect a creation myth which looks at mythical and legendary kings down into the historical period of the last two pre-Islamic dynasties. What Ferdowsi, the author of this poem, did at the cusp of the 11th century was put this monumental prose material into poetic form. And this... (Source)