Where is your nonfiction section please.
All Lara's Wars, by Wojciech Jagielski, translated from Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones (Bookshop.org) I sent them to Omar myself... But my thinking was that it might finally put them off war -- they'd see what it can do to a man, how badly it can destroy him. Then they wouldn't imagine it was just heroism,... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Way of the Strangers, by Graeme Wood (Amazon / Book Depository) "Islam began as something strange and it will return to being strange, so blessed are the strangers." -- Sahih Muslim It's difficult to understand much about the extremist ideology of terrorist groups like ISIS, not least because your average non-Muslim doesn't... Continue Reading →
Book review: Guest House for Young Widows, by Azadeh Moaveni (Amazon / Book Depository) She looked at the girls in the shadows of the backseat, as they drove past grain silos whose towering outlines were visible in the dark. How little they knew what awaited them. They would soon find out that the caliphate ruled... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Beekeeper, by Dunya Mikhail (Amazon / Book Depository) Poet Dunya Mikhail, a US resident originally from Iraq, writes in The Beekeeper about the escape stories of women from that country, fleeing the Islamic State/Daesh, made possible by the eponymous beekeeper of Sinjar province. The women were Yazidis, an ethnic minority heavily targeted by IS... Continue Reading →
Book review: Syria's Secret Library, by Mike Thomson (Amazon / Book Depository) When I first heard rumors of a secret underground library in Daraya, I thought it must surely be an exaggerated account of events. Yet over the months that followed I interviewed dozens of people there, some of whom sent me photographs, and it... Continue Reading →
Book review: In the Skin of a Jihadist, by Anna Erelle (Amazon / Book Depository) When one worked on “societal” issues, it was out of passion. If only I could write about this topic in a new way, one that avoided treating individuals as part of a succession of similar cases. I wanted to investigate... Continue Reading →
Book review: Two Sisters, by Asne Seierstad One October day in 2013, Somali-born Norwegian sisters Ayan and Leila (pseudonyms) left a note explaining their intentions, then boarded a flight from Oslo, beginning a journey that led them to a border town in southern Turkey. From there, they crossed into Syria, choosing to live in terrorist-controlled... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Raqqa Diaries: Escape from Islamic State, by Samer, translated by Nader Ibrahim Samer (not his real name) is a Syrian hoping to begin his studies when Assad's regime is overthrown and the Islamic State (referred to here as Daesh, another of its names) rolls into the country, taking Raqqa as a de facto capital.... Continue Reading →
The Home That Was Our Country, by Alia Malek Journalist and civil rights lawyer Alia Malek was born in Baltimore to Syrian parents. With the memory of her beloved grandmother Salma, the matriarch of their large extended family, and Salma's apartment in Damascus, she always felt a strong connection and pull to the country. Her... Continue Reading →
Book review: Nujeen, by Nujeen Mustafa with Christina Lamb (Amazon / Book Depository) I fell in love with Nujeen Mustafa, like many did, when Last Week Tonight host John Oliver used BBC interview clips of the teenage Syrian refugee at a way station on the Serbian-Hungarian border as she traveled to Germany with her sister. She was so sweet and... Continue Reading →
What's Nonfiction? 