2009 Summer Reading List

To celebrate the summer wedding season try:

  • Wedding Night by Yusuf Abu Rayya
  • The Wedding of Zein and other Stories by Tayeb Saleh
  • Wedding by the Sea by Abdelkader Benali
  • Wedding Song by Naguib Mahfouz

For a change,why not explore some non-fiction:

  • Fragments of Memory: A Story of a Syrian Family, by Syrian author Hanna Mina
  • Children of the Roojme: A Family’s Journey From Lebanon by Elmaz Abinader
  • Return to Childhood: The Memoir of a Modern Moroccan Woman by Leila Abouzeid, Elizabeth Fernea

Short story collections make great Travel books:

  • Oranges in the Sun: Short Stories from the Arabian Gulf, edited by Akers and Bagader
  • Short Stories by Saudi Arabian Women Writers, edited by Ava Heinrichsdorff
  • A Last Glass of Tea and Other Stories by Mohammed el Bisatie
  • Native Informant: Six Tales of Defiance from the Arab World by Ramzi Salti

To try more by authors we’ve read before, we suggest:

  • The Image, the Icon, and the Covenant by Sahar Khalifeh
  • Samarkand by Amin Maalouf
  • Story of a City by Abdul Rahman Munif
  • Beirut Blues by Hanan al-Shaykh

To learn about authors we have yet to read in Kutub, we suggest:

  • Sharon and My Mother-in-law by Suad al-Amiry
  • Leaving Beirut by Mai Ghoussoub
  • The Ship by Jabra Ibrahim
  • The Tongue’s Blood Does Not Run Dry by Assia Djebar
  • Naphtalene: A Novel of Baghdad, by Iraqi author Alia Mamdouh