Author: Michael David Lukas
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0399181172
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 290
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Book Description
In this “wonderfully rich” (San Francisco Chronicle) novel from the author of the internationally bestselling The Oracle of Stamboul, a young man journeys from California to Cairo to unravel centuries-old family secrets. “This book is a joy.”—Rabih Alameddine, author of the National Book Award finalist An Unnecessary Woman WINNER OF: THE AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION’S SOPHIE BRODY AWARD • THE NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD IN FICTION • THE SAMI ROHR PRIZE FOR JEWISH LITERATURE • Named One of the Ten Best Books of the Year by the BBC • Longlisted for the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association Fiction Prize • A Penguin Random House International One World, One Book Selection • Honorable Mention for the Middle East Book Award Joseph, a literature student at Berkeley, is the son of a Jewish mother and a Muslim father. One day, a mysterious package arrives on his doorstep, pulling him into a mesmerizing adventure to uncover the centuries-old history that binds the two sides of his family. From the storied Ibn Ezra Synagogue in Old Cairo, where generations of his family served as watchmen, to the lives of British twin sisters Agnes and Margaret, who in 1897 leave Cambridge on a mission to rescue sacred texts that have begun to disappear from the synagogue, this tightly woven multigenerational tale illuminates the tensions that have torn communities apart and the unlikely forces that attempt to bridge that divide. Moving and richly textured, The Last Watchman of Old Cairo is a poignant portrait of the intricate relationship between fathers and sons, and an unforgettable testament to the stories we inherit and the places we are from. Praise for The Last Watchman of Old Cairo “A beautiful, richly textured novel, ambitious and delicately crafted, The Last Watchman of Old Cairo is both a coming-of-age story and a family history, a wide-ranging book about fathers and sons, religion, magic, love, and the essence of storytelling. This book is a joy.”—Rabih Alameddine, author of the National Book Award finalist An Unnecessary Woman “Lyrical, compassionate and illuminating.”—BBC “Michael David Lukas has given us an elegiac novel of Cairo—Old Cairo and modern Cairo. Lukas’s greatest flair is in capturing the essence of that beautiful, haunted, shabby, beleaguered yet still utterly sublime Middle Eastern city.”—Lucette Lagnado, author of The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit and The Arrogant Years “Brilliant.”—The Jerusalem Post
Author: Michael David Lukas
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0399181164
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 289
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Book Description
"Joseph, a literature student at Berkeley, is the son of a Jewish mother and a Muslim father. One day, a mysterious package arrives on his doorstep, pulling him into a mesmerizing adventure to uncover the tangled history that binds the two sides of his family"--Amazon.com.
Author: Michael David Lukas
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062085433
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 325
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Book Description
Set in the heart of the exotic Ottoman Empire during the first years of its chaotic decline, Michael David Lukas’ elegantly crafted, utterly enchanting debut novel follows a gifted young girl who dares to charm a sultan—and change the course of history, for the empire and the world. An enthralling literary adventure, perfect for readers entranced by the mixture of historical fiction and magical realism in Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass, Orhan Pamuk’s My Name is Red, or Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, Lukas’ evocative tale of prophesy, intrigue, and courage unfolds with the subtlety of a Turkish mosaic and the powerful majesty of an epic for the ages.
Author: Eric Trager
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
ISBN: 1626163626
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 344
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Book Description
How did Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood win power so quickly after the dramatic "Arab Spring" uprising that ended President Hosni Mubarak's thirty-year reign in February 2011? And why did the Brotherhood fall from power even more quickly, culminating with the popular "rebellion" and military coup that toppled Egypt's first elected president, Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi, in July 2013? In Arab Fall, Eric Trager examines the Brotherhood's decision making throughout this critical period, explaining its reasons for joining the 2011 uprising, running for a majority of the seats in the 2011-2012 parliamentary elections, and nominating a presidential candidate despite its initial promise not to do so. Based on extensive research in Egypt and interviews with dozens of Brotherhood leaders and cadres including Morsi, Trager argues that the very organizational characteristics that helped the Brotherhood win power also contributed to its rapid downfall. The Brotherhood's intensive process for recruiting members and its rigid nationwide command-chain meant that it possessed unparalleled mobilizing capabilities for winning the first post-Mubarak parliamentary and presidential elections. Yet the Brotherhood's hierarchical organizational culture, in which dissenters are banished and critics are viewed as enemies of Islam, bred exclusivism. This alienated many Egyptians, including many within Egypt's state institutions. The Brotherhood's insularity also prevented its leaders from recognizing how quickly the country was slipping from their grasp, leaving hundreds of thousands of Muslim Brothers entirely unprepared for the brutal crackdown that followed Morsi's overthrow. Trager concludes with an assessment of the current state of Egyptian politics and examines the Brotherhood's prospects for reemerging.
Author: Bess Kalb
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0525654720
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 224
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Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: VOGUE • FORBES • BOOKPAGE • NEW YORK POST • WIRED “I have not been as profoundly moved by a book in years.” —Jodi Picoult Even after she left home for Hollywood, Emmy-nominated TV writer Bess Kalb saved every voicemail her grandmother Bobby Bell ever left her. Bobby was a force—irrepressible, glamorous, unapologetically opinionated. Bobby doted on Bess; Bess adored Bobby. Then, at ninety, Bobby died. But in this debut memoir, Bobby is speaking to Bess once more, in a voice as passionate as it ever was in life. Recounting both family lore and family secrets, Bobby brings us four generations of indomitable women and the men who loved them. There’s Bobby’s mother, who traveled solo from Belarus to America in the 1880s to escape the pogroms, and Bess’s mother, a 1970s rebel who always fought against convention. But it was Bobby and Bess who always had the most powerful bond: Bobby her granddaughter’s fiercest supporter, giving Bess unequivocal love, even if sometimes of the toughest kind. Nobody Will Tell You This But Me marks the creation of a totally new, virtuosic form of memoir: a reconstruction of a beloved grandmother’s words and wisdom to tell her family’s story with equal parts poignancy and hilarity.
Author: Saleem Haddad
Publisher: Other Press, LLC
ISBN: 1590517709
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 368
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Book Description
A debut novel that tells the story of Rasa, a young gay man coming of age in the Middle East Set over the course of twenty-four hours, Guapa follows Rasa, a gay man living in an unnamed Arab country, as he tries to carve out a life for himself in the midst of political and social upheaval. Rasa spends his days translating for Western journalists and pining for the nights when he can sneak his lover, Taymour, into his room. One night Rasa's grandmother — the woman who raised him — catches them in bed together. The following day Rasa is consumed by the search for his best friend Maj, a fiery activist and drag queen star of the underground bar, Guapa, who has been arrested by the police. Ashamed to go home and face his grandmother, and reeling from the potential loss of the three most important people in his life, Rasa roams the city’s slums and prisons, the lavish weddings of the country’s elite, and the bars where outcasts and intellectuals drink to a long-lost revolution. Each new encounter leads him closer to confronting his own identity, as he revisits his childhood and probes the secrets that haunt his family. As Rasa confronts the simultaneous collapse of political hope and his closest personal relationships, he is forced to discover the roots of his alienation and try to re-emerge into a society that may never accept him.
Author: Elizabeth Peters
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1780334478
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 388
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Book Description
Join our plucky Victorian Egyptologist, together with her devastatingly handsome and brilliant husband Radcliffe, in another exciting escapade Swapping the stifling heat and dust of Egypt for the cooler climes of London, adventuress Amelia Peabody finds herself plunged into an escapade set in the dignified surroundings of the British Museum, and as ever, she is aided and abetted by her irascible husband Emerson and precocious son Ramses. First of all a night watchman is found dead in the Mummy Room of the museum, a look of horror frozen on his face and very soon panic spreads through the capital while the gutter press ask the question 'Can Fear Kill?'. And before Amelia can respond with an appropriate answer, a pair of dissolute aristocrats with a shady past appear in her life together with supernatural curses, a lady of dubious reputation with a link to Emerson's bachelor past and a homicidal maniac disguised as an ancient Sem priest - but they are only the very tip of this most singular mystery. And as Amelia closes in on the murderer, Emerson and Ramses must try to keep her from adding herself to the list of victims...
Author: Tudor Jenks
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Artists
Languages : en
Pages : 272
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Book Description
A humorous fictional account of a visit to the World's Columbian exposition illustrated with actual photographs and sketches of the buildings, exhibits, and fairgrounds.
Author: Rachel Kadish
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0544866673
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 581
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Book Description
WINNER OF A NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD A USA TODAY BESTSELLER "A gifted writer, astonishingly adept at nuance, narration, and the politics of passion."—Toni Morrison Set in London of the 1660s and of the early twenty-first century, The Weight of Ink is the interwoven tale of two women of remarkable intellect: Ester Velasquez, an emigrant from Amsterdam who is permitted to scribe for a blind rabbi, just before the plague hits the city; and Helen Watt, an ailing historian with a love of Jewish history. When Helen is summoned by a former student to view a cache of newly discovered seventeenth-century Jewish documents, she enlists the help of Aaron Levy, an American graduate student as impatient as he is charming, and embarks on one last project: to determine the identity of the documents' scribe, the elusive "Aleph." Electrifying and ambitious, The Weight of Ink is about women separated by centuries—and the choices and sacrifices they must make in order to reconcile the life of the heart and mind.
Author: Will Hermes
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0374533547
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 385
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Book Description
This title provides a group portrait of some of the greatest musicians of the 20th century, including Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith, Grandmaster Flash and Bob Dylan.
