42 Books Like Brownies and Kalashnikovs

I planned to read this book for research but ended up so immersed in the story that I kept forgetting to take notes. The narrative, a “clever inversion of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness,” follows the travels and travails of a young protagonist tangled in the contradictions of his African childhood, his formal education in England, and his return home with what he sees as the boon of modern thought. Part mystery, part romance, part history, part monomyth, part psychological thriller, the novel is set in an “unsettled and violent no-man’s-land between…tradition and innovation, holiness and defilement...” This book fascinated and haunted me even as it informed me about the complexities, dichotomies, and dissonance of colonization. Shot through with “allusions to Arabic and European fiction, Islamic history, Shakespeare, Freud, and classical Arabic poetry,” Salih’s novel should first be read for what it is: a brilliant work of art.

Translated into English by Peter Theroux, this gorgeously written and emotionally stunning novel is told from the perspective of the Bedouin inhabitants during a time when Americans were arriving by the shipload to develop the oilfields they had discovered. The story is both epic and intimate (and, at points, wittily ironic) and opened my eyes to the vast destruction not only of the land and its people but the very core of their culture. Banned in several Middle Eastern countries, including Saudi Arabia, this is the first volume of a trilogy (and I recommend them all). 

Of all the histories, journals, diaries, novels, and memoirs I read while doing research for ITKOM, Ahmed Abodehman’s slim book has lodged itself deepest in my heart. Sometimes referred to as a memoir and at other times as an autobiographical novel, The Belt is less about the changes brought on by the petroleum industry in particular than it is about the dislocation brought on by modernization (much of it driven by the quest for control of the vast oil reserves). The story begins with a tribal elder “examining young Ahmed's knife to determine the boy's masculinity.” With the coming of a government school to the village, such ancient tribal customs are challenged by more urban ideologies and orthodox Islam as the speaker struggles to retain the tribal songs he carries inside himself “like an inexhaustive fire.” With a poet’s sense of image and language, Ahmed Abodehman weaves a gorgeous coming-of-age… show more.

A simple yet elegantly written memoir about growing up in mid-century as a Palestinian Arab Bedouin. Diqs’ focus is not on politics but on family, tribe, and tradition as he details his boyhood and his people’s dislocation and transition from nomads tending their sheep to an agrarian, village-based culture. Diqs’ written memories provided me with a profound and intimate awareness of the details of Bedouin life before the partitioning of Palestine and the petroleum industry’s impact on the Middle East.

For research or just for the “I gotta find out more about these guys,” this memoir caught my attention. The book by Chuck Pfarrer shows the breadth of what U.S. Navy SEALS do. But that’s not why I liked this book so much.

The part I found most intriguing was Pfarrer’s deployment in Lebanon to support the multi-national peacekeeping force during the Lebanese Civil War. Pfarrer’s reflections are comments on the nature of the enemy that the US and Western Forces faced (and currently face) in the battle against terrorism. He witnessed the horrific Beirut barracks bombings and described the emotional and political impact of those attacks. I found it riveting.

I started to love this book as soon as I realized I didn’t hate it. Initially, I thought Hammel had no point. He showed Marines doing this and that in Beirut. Sometimes they were hanging out, sometimes they were fighting. Then I realized Hammel had captured everything perfectly.

I didn’t understand what the Marines were doing in Beirut because they didn’t understand what they were doing there, and they didn’t understand what they were doing there because Washington didn’t know why it sent them there.

In that context, I grasped the tragedy of the deadly Beirut barracks bombing of Oct. 23, 1983. Nearly 250 Marines died because of an intellectual vacuum.

I loved this book because of the insight the author gives to his strategy of survival–kidnapped, imprisoned, and tortured for over four years in the hands of Shi’ite militia.

Beautifully written, Keenan’s artistry thrilled me with its almost spiritual air and testimony to rare human resilience and its transformative power.

This is a devastating account of over thirty years of highly dysfunctional battles between war-mongering countries and groups that instead of healing divisions continue to tear Lebanon's different communities apart. What makes it so powerful is that it exposes the lie that wars are unleashed by complex grand forces at work. Fisk's book shows how ruthless individuals consciously start wars by inventing grievances and fomenting unrest, destroying a stunningly beautiful country, and brutalising its population.

Ann Kerr and her husband Malcolm spent years in academic and diplomatic work across the region and especially in Cairo, Egypt and Beirut, Lebanon in critical times. Civil war and international conflict are described from the human perspective. The Kerr family dealt with great danger to help keep the American University of Beirut open amidst war; but paid a terrible price for their commitment to academic freedom.

I admit drawing a big breath before buying this book. At nearly 1200 pages of dense type, it’s no lightweight.

But years before, I had admired Fisk’s war reporting. Here, I found all the qualities I remembered: nuanced geopolitics with humanity, brutal honesty with subtle observation, pointed modern parallels from an erudite grasp of history. Then I delight in the sheer virtuosity of word craft: not surprising from someone who wrote thousands of words to deadline, sometimes shouting his despatches against cannon fire over stuttering phone lines.

Above all, I find myself repeatedly inspired by his ability to observe and note every tiny yet resonant detail: from the serial number on a rocket fragment to the shoes worn by an official.