100 Books Like Habibi

Right off the bat, Darius jumps off the page as a real teen with relatable problems.

He’s the quiet kid at school, who the others tease. And he suffers from clinical depression. What I loved was how well Khorram tackled depression’s subtleties.

I think there is a tendency for society to see depression as this overarching dark cloud that keeps us in bed 24/7. But the truth is, many people who are suffering, are functional.

From the outside, we don’t see the building up of little moments that act like a snowball gradually expanding as it rolls down the mountain face.

Be warned – the food descriptions are amazing, so you might get hungry during the read.

This is my only other fiction pick. I read this many years ago, when it was new, but it stayed with me. We see a lot of relationships between people and dogs or people and horses, but this is a novel about a girl and a group of bonobos. That’s an interesting twist on the human/animal relationship, because other primates are so similar to us in their intelligence and approach to the world. They are mostly helpless against human forces, but then again so are young girls. The bonds formed in this book are worth the price of admission, and the suspense is high throughout.

This very involving story centers on two boys who find themselves in Brussels. Max’s American family is here for his dad’s posting with NATO; Ahmed, a young Syrian, is broke and alone after losing his family in the civil war. Getting to know Ahmed brings a sense of purpose to Max’s life—but one he has to hide from almost everyone. Nowhere Boy pulls us in as its characters struggle and everyone is swamped by the confusing tension that the flood of Muslim refugees has brought to Europe. There are no simple answers here, but one simple truth: The vast majority of refugees are just people and families, not furthering violence but seeking safety from it.

Thirteen-year-old Clare is a doctor’s daughter whose mom died last year. She joins her dad for two months in a jungly rural district deep in Malawi, where he works for a medical charity and she attends a local school. Claire is deep in her grief—but in Mzanga Village Primary she makes deep connections, then has to confront heartbreak all over again. It’s funny and inspiring to witness the ways the village kids cope with privations and challenges far beyond any Clare has ever known. Burg’s characters rise easily from her pages to life; and her novel pries open our hearts, even just a little, right along with Clare’s.

Frankl, de Tocqueville, Love, and Tocquigny focus on affirmative action, success, meaning, and purpose, and Arendt provides a sobering reflection on the alternative. After observing the greatest horror the world has produced, she concludes much of the wickedness in the world is created by people in the neutral zone, people with no allegiance to good or evil, people who “just let it happen.”

What happens when we don’t choose but are content to let others choose for us when we deny our “response-ability.”  Who is responsible when no one is responsible?

Warriors of God is an up-close and very personal deep dive with two legendary players during the Third Crusade, Richard the Lionheart and Saladin as they battle for the Holy Land. We dive headfirst into each ruler’s accession to power and how they clashed over the sands of the Levant. The novel is as gripping as it is profound, and I would highly recommend it to anyone seeking to further their knowledge and understanding of the crusades and their impact on our world today. However, it should be noted that while “history” tends to cross the line into fiction at times. Warriors of God is the only non-fiction history novel on this list. I feel that the narrative and story are strong enough to be read for knowledge and entertainment.

There are many sweeping histories of Jerusalem, but this book tells the intimate stories of people and places that often get short shrift.

Teller takes us into the Arab as well as Jewish worlds of the Old City, and he serves as a gentle guide in the passionate and fraught politics of a city that, as he writes, “wears its history like a teenager wears a school uniform – joyless.”

Mohammed El-Kurd is arguably the most militant voice in Palestinian literature since Ghassan Kanafani. Born in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, even as a young boy, he began speaking out against the settlers who were occupying his home.

Rifqa is his debut poetry collection. Named for his grandmother, the poems in this work combine oral history with powerful political verse. Despite his youth, Kurd speaks as a poet who has already developed a strong literary voice. Having witnessed the brutality of occupation and lived to tell the story.

Since 2021, El-Kurd has been the Palestine correspondent for The Nation, and in this role has brought a Palestinian perspective to the media coverage that tends to silence Palestinian voices.

This year Jews and Muslims around the world are struggling with the awful conflict in the Middle East.

Like so many, I yearn for a reality in which all the religions that count Jerusalem as a holy place could coexist with respect and honor.

De la Costa explores this elusive connection on a level that even young kids can understand, the shared love of a cat. The art is beautiful.

Jerusalem has been conquered, destroyed, and plundered throughout its history. Successive conquerors have built on their predecessors, as a result much of Jerusalem’s history is hidden.

This book tells the tale of a century and a half of people digging below Jerusalem to find what is hidden. While many of those who dug were reputable others had ulterior motives seeking either to prove their religious beliefs or their group’s claim to the city or sometimes seeking treasure.

They have and are being used to change the city and this book tells the history of their work and its impact on the citizens of the city. It is a fascinating tale.