This features several of the female characters from Satrapi's Persepolis, gathered together over tea in a Tehran apartment and taking advantage of their menfolk's afternoon nap to talk freely about their sexuality. It's beautiful and touching and very much in line with other things I have read about Iranian women's culture, and I highly recommend

11. Selected Poems by Mimi Khalvati is a selection from three previous books, which I enjoyed cos, although her poetry tends to be allusive (and so I missed some of the meaning), Khalvati's use of language is like listening to music. Two example poems, which I found particularly pleasing for various reasons, at my dw journalDisclaimer (also for the ( Read more... )

Explores the rapidly changing eras of Iran's recent history through the eyes of one family. I never quite kept up with all the relationships between the characters, but still felt like I knew them. The prose is beautiful and deceptively simple; often much meaning is packed in an allusion and a silence. (As in the beginnings of a love affair where ( Read more... )

13/50: Chicken With Plums by Marjane SatrapiWell, it was beautifully drawn as always - I love the style - and witty and funny and sharp. But the story was just completely uninteresting to me. Nasser Ali was a giant asshole, it seems, and I just couldn't care about his plight with music, and women, and blah, when he had a family to take care of, ( Read more... )

( Chicken With Plums by Marjane Satrapi )

40. Reza Aslan, How to Win a Cosmic War: God, Globalization, and the End of the War on TerrorA non-fiction pop book dealing with a wide range of subjects, from the history of the state of Israel, to the difference between Islamist groups like Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and Jihadist groups like al-Qa'ida (as well as the inaccuracy of referring ( Read more... )

30. Reza Aslan, No God But God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam

I adored this book. It's a non-fiction book detailing Islam as a religion; about half of it is devoted to an incredibly detailed description of life and culture in the Arabian peninsula immediately before and during Mohammad's life. The second half of the book lays out ( Read more... )

29. Ten Things I Hate About Me, by Randa Abdel-Fattah

I liked this a lot more than Does My Head Look Big In This? Real, honest examination of passing, dual consciousness, and holding on to one's cultural identity.

One thing that got on my nerves about it was the protagonist's older sister, who is one of these "smart kids" and uses (or is ( Read more... )

Hooman Majd’s The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran is a exploration Iran's political system and society. The book aims to answer the questions “Do Iranians support the Islamic Republic? And if so, why?”, a task that it completes handily ( Read more... )

After Satrapi leaves Iran at the end of Persepolis 1, she begins a new life in Vienna as an immigrant alone in a foreign land. This is a more familiar story, at least to me, than that of growing up during and after a revolution. But not only is it just as witty and well-observed and poignant as the first book, this one too is full of the sort of ( Read more... )