The Middle East Reading Challenge that I have been hosting started on August 1, 2010 to begin close to Ramadan last year and since I said it would run for one year, it will end on July 31, 2011.
If you'd like to see links to book reviews that have been posted, you'll find books to fit all tastes including fiction and non-fiction, adult and YA.
I am interested in running this challenge again especially since I have so many more Middle Eastern books to read on my TBR shelves. However I think I will start it up in January 2012 to coincide with most of the other challenges around the blogosphere.
Here are the books I read and reviewed for this challenge over the past twelve months:
- I am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced by Nujood Ali (Yemen)
- Sharing our Homeland: Palestinian and Jewish Children at Summer Peace Camp by Trish Marx (Israel/Palestine)
- Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca by Tahir Shah (Morocco)
- Barefoot in Baghdad by Manal M. Omar (Iraq)
- Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa (Israel/Palestine)
- Lemon Tree: An Arab, A Jew and the Heart of the Middle East by Sandy Tolan (Israel/Palestine)
- Muslim Women Reformers by Ida Lichter (all over the Middle East)
- Palestine by Joe Sacco (Palestine)
- Women Without Men by Shahrnush Parsipur (Iran)
- Cemetery of Dreams by S. Mostofi (Iran)
- Girls of Riyadh by Rajaa Alsanea (Saudi Arabia)
- Finding Nouf by Zoe Ferraris (Saudi Arabia)
Here are books that I still hope to read when the challenge starts up again in January. It's a little Iran-heavy so I may have to do something about that.
- The Ayatollah Begs to Differ by Hooman Majd (Iran)
- I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti (Israel/Palestine)
- The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany (Egypt)
- The Woman Who Fell from the Sky by Jennifer Steil (Yemen)
- City of Veil by Zoe Ferraris (Saudi Arabia)
- The Sirens of Baghdad by Yasmina Khadra (Iraq)
- The Attack by Yasmina Khadra (Israel/Palestine)
- Prisoner of Tehran by Marina Nemat (Iran)
- Rooftops of Tehran by Mahbod Seraji (Iran)
- The Septembers of Shiraz by Dalia Sofer (Iran)
- Mondays in the Middle East by David Cross (Oman and other countries)
Please leave a link in the comments below to your wrap up post. I hope you've had a wonderful time reading books set in the Middle East or written by Middle Eastern writers. I have been exposed to books I never would have read and for that I thank everyone who participated.
3 comments
I know I haven't yet replied to your email (things have been a little busy here). But I was going to suggest that I would love to do this again. I only did one book this time, but now I am getting a better hang of managing challenges, and this is one that I'm still interested in. Also, I'm glad you're going to start it in Jan, because that's one of the things that would help me focus better on this challenge. Yay!
Congrats on all of the reading that you got done for this challenge!
Aths--Managing challenges is definitely something I need to concentrate on. I tend to finish all my challenges by mid-year then relax and not worry until January again!
Alyce--Thank you! I feel like I've really been exposed to a wealth of new literature and cultures.
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