Tarek Osman's Top Book Recommendations
Want to know what books Tarek Osman recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Tarek Osman's favorite book recommendations of all time.
Recommended by Tarek Osman, and 1 others. Tarek OsmanI would really recommend this book. If you are going to try to understand the Arab world, you certainly need some sort of understanding of Islam. And Islam is obviously a topic that has been discussed hundreds of time and there are excellent scholars who tried to put forward narratives of what went wrong. For example, you have Bernard Lewis with a book called, Islam: What Went Wrong; Olivier Roy... (Source)
"... I see Egypt responding to my plea for ever greater efforts to banish ignorance from her midst and provide everyone - rich and poor, strong and weak, keen and dull, young and old - with his portion of knowledge. The delights of learning will permeate their soul and its light will illuminate every dwelling from castle to hovel. A new life and a new energy will infuse Egypt and will turn her into a veritable paradise on earth."
First English Translation by Sidney Glazer, published by...
moreRecommended by Tarek Osman, and 1 others. Tarek OsmanYes, that book was published in 1936, and to a large extent the same question that Hussein faced then actually faces Egypt and many other parts of the Arab world today. At that time the Arab world, especially Egypt and the Levant and even parts of North Africa, was really in a dilemma. Sixty or 70 years had passed since the Europeans had arrived in the Middle East in the mid-19th century. And... (Source)
The novels of The Cairo Trilogy trace three generations of the family of tyrannical patriarch Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, who rules his household with a strict hand while living a secret life of self-indulgence. Palace Walk introduces us to his gentle, oppressed wife, Amina, his... more
Recommended by Tarek Osman, and 1 others. Tarek OsmanI think first of all that it is a great literary treat. I believe it is a really captivating novel. But I think the real importance of The Cairo Trilogy is that arguably if you want to choose one city within the whole of the Arab world that is representative of the history of the Arab world in the past few hundred years I would say that it is Cairo. Damascus might be a contender but I think Cairo... (Source)
The story of a man undone by a culture that in part created him, Season of Migration to the North, is a powerful and evocative examination of colonization in two vastly different worlds.
When a young man returns to his village in the Sudan after many years studying in Europe, he finds that among the familiar faces there is now a stranger - the enigmatic Mustafa Sa'eed. As the two become friends, Mustafa... more
Robert IrwinIt’s a novel about the clash of cultures, the intermixture of cultures. It’s a novel about what happens to a man, or two men, when they leave their village and go north, to England, the land where the fish die of cold, and get a western education, and some of the dangers of that. It’s a very strange and very complex novel (Source)
Robert IrwinIt’s a novel about the clash of cultures, the intermixture of cultures. It’s a novel about what happens to a man, or two men, when they leave their village and go north, to England, the land where the fish die of cold, and get a western education, and some of the dangers of that. It’s a very strange and very complex novel (Source)
Mathias EnardIt’s a masterpiece. Probably the best Arabic novel of the 20th century. Subtle, dark and deeply ironic. (Source)
No region in the world today is more important than the Middle East: no people more misunderstood than the Arabs. In this definitive masterwork, distinguished Oxford historian Albert Hourani offers the most lucid, enlightening history ever written on the subject. From the rise of Islam to the Palestinian issue, from the Prophet Mohammed to Mu'ammar al-Qadhafi. A History of the Arab Peoples chronicles the rich... more
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)
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