Genres

Iraq

Lists

Imperial Life in the Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran

Iraq

87 books — 6 voters

EL TERCER TESTIGO by Juan José Soriano Lluch

The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani

Historical Fiction - Middle East

131 books — 81 voters

The Hidden Face of Eve by Nawal El Saadawi

The Veil and the Male Elite by Fatema Mernissi

Arab feminism

46 books — 45 voters

A Gracious Enemy & After the War Volume Two by Michael G. Kramer

The Full Circle for Mick by Michael G. Kramer

We Were Soldiers Once... and Young by Harold G. Moore

Veteran Recommendations

903 books — 480 voters

The Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty

The Tale of Iśva Raman by Najeev Nadarajah

Middle Eastern - South Asian fantasy

51 books — 40 voters

Asian Fantasy & Science Fiction

505 books — 306 voters

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“ So I close this long reflection on what I hope is a not-too-quaveringly semi-Semitic note. When I am at home, I will only enter a synagogue for the bar or bat mitzvah of a friend's child, or in order to have a debate with the faithful. (When I was to be wed, I chose a rabbi named Robert Goldburg, an Einsteinian and a Shakespearean and a Spinozist, who had married Arthur Miller to Marilyn Monroe and had a copy of Marilyn’s conversion certificate. He conducted the ceremony in Victor and Annie Nava So I close this long reflection on what I hope is a not-too-quaveringly semi-Semitic note. When I am at home, I will only enter a synagogue for the bar or bat mitzvah of a friend's child, or in order to have a debate with the faithful. (When I was to be wed, I chose a rabbi named Robert Goldburg, an Einsteinian and a Shakespearean and a Spinozist, who had married Arthur Miller to Marilyn Monroe and had a copy of Marilyn’s conversion certificate. He conducted the ceremony in Victor and Annie Navasky's front room, with David Rieff and Steve Wasserman as my best of men.) I wanted to do something to acknowledge, and to knit up, the broken continuity between me and my German-Polish forebears. When I am traveling, I will stop at the shul if it is in a country where Jews are under threat, or dying out, or were once persecuted. This has taken me down queer and sad little side streets in Morocco and Tunisia and Eritrea and India, and in Damascus and Budapest and Prague and Istanbul, more than once to temples that have recently been desecrated by the new breed of racist Islamic gangster. (I have also had quite serious discussions, with Iraqi Kurdish friends, about the possibility of Jews genuinely returning in friendship to the places in northern Iraq from which they were once expelled.) I hate the idea that the dispossession of one people should be held hostage to the victimhood of another, as it is in the Middle East and as it was in Eastern Europe. But I find myself somehow assuming that Jewishness and 'normality' are in some profound way noncompatible. The most gracious thing said to me when I discovered my family secret was by Martin, who after a long evening of ironic reflection said quite simply: 'Hitch, I find that I am a little envious of you.' I choose to think that this proved, once again, his appreciation for the nuances of risk, uncertainty, ambivalence, and ambiguity. These happen to be the very things that 'security' and 'normality,' rather like the fantasy of salvation, cannot purchase. ...more ”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

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“ Well, here’s the shocker,” said Kirby. “Majors Miller and McKinsey believe our former Captain Paul Remmich is acting as a spy for the Iraqi government. ”
― Karl Braungart, Counter Identity

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