Here are 100 books that Reading Lolita in Tehran fans have personally recommended if you like
Reading Lolita in Tehran.
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I'm an Iranian-American who left the country with my family after the Islamic Revolution. I'm watching the events unfold in Iran since the murder of Mahsa Amini with equal parts sadness and awe. Sadness for the loss of life and awe for the bravery of the young protestors in the country. My books will always have a nod to my culture of origin—whether about growing up in an immigrant household in my memoir, Americanized, or writing an Iranian-American character like Parisa in I Miss You, I Hate This. It's been fascinating to see people in America pay attention to what's happening in Iran and I wanted to share some books that'll help inform their perspective.
An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror by Stephen Kinzer. Honestly, if I was Ben Affleck I would have made a movie based on this book instead of Argo.Kinzer’s book exposes the United States and the UK’s role in creating the Iran of today by detailing Operation Ajax—or the coup that caused the downfall of elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. Spoiler alert: it had a lot to do with oil. What’s devasting is to picture what Iran would look like today without foreign intervention in the 1950s.
With a thrilling narrative that sheds much light on recent events, this national bestseller brings to life the 1953 CIA coup in Iran that ousted the country’s elected prime minister, ushered in a quarter-century of brutal rule under the Shah, and stimulated the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and anti-Americanism in the Middle East. Selected as one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post and The Economist, it now features a new preface by the author on the folly of attacking Iran.
The Victorian mansion, Evenmere, is the mechanism that runs the universe.
The lamps must be lit, or the stars die. The clocks must be wound, or Time ceases. The Balance between Order and Chaos must be preserved, or Existence crumbles.
Appointed the Steward of Evenmere, Carter Anderson must learn the…
I'm an Iranian-American who left the country with my family after the Islamic Revolution. I'm watching the events unfold in Iran since the murder of Mahsa Amini with equal parts sadness and awe. Sadness for the loss of life and awe for the bravery of the young protestors in the country. My books will always have a nod to my culture of origin—whether about growing up in an immigrant household in my memoir, Americanized, or writing an Iranian-American character like Parisa in I Miss You, I Hate This. It's been fascinating to see people in America pay attention to what's happening in Iran and I wanted to share some books that'll help inform their perspective.
My family fled Iran a couple years after the Islamic Revolution, but growing up, my parents didn’t talk about that period in their life all that much. It was sort of like my friend whose dad never talked about Vietnam. So, even though I was born in Iran post-revolution, I didn’t learn much about the history of the Shah’s downfall until I read Marjane Satrapi’s incredible graphic novels –Persepolis, Books One and Two. Satrapi manages to create a funny and heartbreaking memoir about her adolescence during the revolution and her life as a young ex-pat living in Paris.
Follow it up with her graphic novella, Embroideries—which delves into the sex livesof Iranian women. Another topic that was generally off-limits in our household.
Here, in one volume: Marjane Satrapi's best-selling, internationally acclaimed graphic memoir of growing up as a girl in revolutionary Iran. • "That Satrapi chose to tell her remarkable story as a gorgeous comic book makes it totally unique and indispensable" —TIME
Persepolis is the story of Satrapi's unforgettable childhood and coming of age within a large and loving family in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution; of the contradictions between private life and public life in a country plagued by political upheaval; of her high school years in Vienna facing the trials of adolescence far from her family; of her homecoming—both…
I was born in England but was ‘exported’ to Malaya/sia in the 1950s, where my father worked as an engineer. I developed a life-long love for the languages and cultures of the region. I did Chinese Studies at Leeds University and then went to study Chinese literature in China, arriving there in 1976. I have retained a love and fascination for the Far East and have lived and worked in tertiary institutions in Burma, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan. I loved the books on my list because they all added to my knowledge of China but in very different ways.
This is a wonderful memoir about teaching English in a school in a small town on the banks of the Yangtze River in Sichuan. Hessler was the first foreigner to live in the town for several decades, and I loved reading about how he learned more about himself from his students and his own understanding of what it is like to be immersed in a completely new cultural environment.
When Peter Hessler went to China in the late 1990s, he expected to spend a couple of peaceful years teaching English in the town of Fuling on the Yangtze River. But what he experienced - the natural beauty, cultural tension, and complex process of understanding that takes place when one is thrust into a radically different society - surpassed anything he could have imagined. Hessler observes firsthand how major events such as the death of Deng Xiaoping, the return of Hong Kong to the mainland, and the controversial consturction of the Three Gorges Dam have affected even the people of…
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
Currently, I am a lecturer at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, teaching speech and writing at a perennial top ten business school in America. I also teach speech to business students as an adjunct professor at Butler University in Indianapolis. Before teaching became my calling and my fulltime vocation, I spent thirteen years working for the State of Indiana, and twenty years as a contract lobbyist in the Indiana Statehouse.
This is the story that made me want to be either a reporter or a whistleblower. The trail of this episode from the moments the break-in occurred at Watergate to the resignation of President Nixon show how complex corruption often is. “Getting to the bottom of it” is often never fully achieved in conspiracies, not only as large and sweeping as this one, but of countless others that are much smaller in scale.
Additionally, this is a great example of how the original decision to commit the first corrupt act leads to more and more of it until corruption defines the existence of men and women who started out with good intentions.
50th Anniversary Edition—With a new foreword on what Watergate means today.
“The work that brought down a presidency...perhaps the most influential piece of journalism in history” (Time)—from the #1 New York Times bestselling authors of The Final Days.
The most devastating political detective story of the century: two Washington Post reporters, whose brilliant, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation smashed the Watergate scandal wide open, tell the behind-the-scenes drama the way it really happened.
One of Time magazine’s All-Time 100 Best Nonfiction Books, this is the book that changed America. Published just months before President Nixon’s resignation, All the President’s Men revealed the…
I spent twenty five years on active duty with nineteen months in Vietnam as a helicopter pilot. I served as a tactics instructor at the US Army Infantry Center; two years teaching the operational level of war at the US Army Command and General Staff College; two years teaching at the German Army Tactics Center. I commanded two rifle companies, one being an Airborne rifle company in Alaska and served two years as battalion commander of an air assault infantry battalion during Operation Desert Shield/Storm. I hold a Masters Degree in Military Strategy from the US Army Command and Staff College.
I recommended this book as it shows the mistakes that were made in the conduct of the Vietnam War from a military perspective and strategy. While I served in Vietnam, I could not understand some of the things we were asked and told to do.
This book shed new light on those orders and how those orders contributed to the end results of the war. I found it amazing that one man had the answers and yet was ignored by so many. I found it disturbing common sense threatened senior officers egos and the results were a war that America would be saddled with for ten years and countless lost lives.
Outspoken, professional and fearless, Lt. Col. John Paul Vann went to Vietnam in 1962, full of confidence in America's might and right to prevail. He was soon appalled by the South Vietnamese troops' unwillingness to fight, by their random slaughter of civilians and by the arrogance and corruption of the US military. He flouted his supervisors and leaked his sharply pessimistic - and, as it turned out, accurate - assessments to the US press corps in Saigon. Among them was Sheehan, who became fascinated by the angry Vann, befriended him and followed his tragic and reckless career.
Writers often get labeled as either nonfiction or fiction writers. In grad school, it was very difficult to study across genres, which I found very frustrating: To me, the most important thing about a book has always been the voice. A novel? A memoir? Essays? Stories? Don’t pin me down, just give me something with a voice that propels me forward, that is unique and sparkling and unputdownable. When I find books with voices so singular and propulsive, I return to them over and over.
There is nothing like this groundbreaking memoir—it is as good as it gets—and it has probably influenced every memoir since (including my own).
Kingston is a poet, and I find it impossible not to sink into the striking, gorgeous language and imagery as she describes growing up between multiple worlds: the China her parents emigrated from, the California of a first-generation daughter of immigrants, the ghost-filled China of her mother’s “talk stories,” and her inner life and growing awareness. She weaves family stories, famous myths, and her own girlhood experiences into a beautiful and unforgettable narrative.
NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • With this book, the acclaimed author created an entirely new form—an exhilarating blend of autobiography and mythology, of world and self, of hot rage and cool analysis. First published in 1976, it has become a classic in its innovative portrayal of multiple and intersecting identities—immigrant, female, Chinese, American.
“A classic, for a reason” – Celeste Ng via Twitter
As a girl, Kingston lives in two confounding worlds: the California to which her parents have immigrated and the China of her mother’s “talk stories.” The fierce and wily women warriors of…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
I’ve been a teacher for over 30 years and a traveler for longer. As a child, I lived in Germany and Japan. When I grew up, I continued to travel, teaching and living in Thailand, London, and China. I’ve written book chapters, poetry, travel pieces, and won a number of writing prizes: the 2023 New York Book Festival prize and a finalist for both the Peter Taylor Prize for Literature and the Gival Press Novel Award. A graduate of Middlebury College (BA) and University of Rochester (PhD), I now live in San Diego with my husband and two cats, teach adult literacy, and work as a volunteer at the San Diego Zoo.
Whereas Hessler’s book is about a country gradually opening up to the west, Suki Kim’s book is about a country completely isolated.
Kim works for six months in North Korea at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, a school for the boys of the ruling elite. While living there, rather than connecting with her students, she is unsettled by how deep the country’s deceptions are.
The university, although claiming to be a school for science and industry, has neither labs nor modern technology. Her travel is circumscribed and carefully scripted. The students lie effortlessly about things of little consequence. The entire country seems to be built on holograms and shadows. She travels as teacher, but in the end serves as journalist, seeking the truth behind a country that the world barely understands.
It is 2011, and all universities in North Korea have been shut down for an entire year, except for the all-male Pyongyang University of Science and Technology. This is where Suki Kim has accepted a job teaching English. Over the next six months she will eat three meals a day with her young charges and struggle to teach them to write, all under the watchful eye of the regime.
Life at the university is lonely and claustrophobic. Her letters are read by censors and she must hide her notes and photographs not only from her minders but also from her…
I am a reader, writer, and professor specializing in memoir writing. I think every single person has a fascinating life. But, when writing it down, it can be difficult to find a narrative structure that allows the story to feel as unique as the human being writing it. I am drawn to memoirs that have fresh, creative ways of organizing their material—memoirs that go beyond or subvert the conventional, straightforward, chronological approach. After all, our memories are often scattered, fragmented, interrupted, non-linear, or just bizarre; memoirs that capture not only the person’s lived experience but also the messiness of memory itself feel more powerful and true to me.
Because my first introduction to bell hooks was through her scholarly writing, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this memoir. A few pages in, I was already dazzled, challenged, and addicted to her storytelling genius—I read it in one sitting and immediately began reading it again. The perfect memoir for those who are looking for unconventional storytelling, hooks uses techniques like point-of-view shifts to paint a realer-than-real-life portrait of her childhood in rural Kentucky.
Stitching together girlhood memories with the finest threads of innocence, feminist intellectual bell hooks presents a powerfully intimate account of growing up in the South. A memoir of ideas and perceptions, Bone Black shows the unfolding of female creativity and one strong-spirited child’s journey toward becoming a writer. She learns early on the roles women and men play in society, as well as the emotional vulnerability of children. She sheds new light on a society that beholds the joys of marriage for men and condemns anything more than silence for women. In this world, too, black is a woman’s color—worn…
I’m a physical therapist, certified yoga therapist, and Hakomi practitioner who has spent over twenty-five years helping people heal from physical and emotional pain through the integration of yoga, mindfulness and western medicine. My passion for this topic comes from my own transformation—moving through trauma and burnout into a life guided by mindfulness, movement, and compassion. I’ve seen again and again that presence is the medicine that changes everything. Writing and teaching about this path feels like offering others the same lifeline that once saved me.
I fell in love with Abigail Thomas’s memoir, her wise voice and writing style.
Her brief vignettes capture the sacredness of ordinary moments: a dog on the couch, a shared meal, a loss remembered. She taught me that healing isn’t dramatic; it’s built quietly through presence and acceptance.
Reading Safekeeping feels like sitting with a friend who has lived, grieved, and found peace in the small details that hold a life together.
A beautifully crafted and inviting account of one woman’s life, Safekeeping offers a sublimely different kind of autobiography. Setting aside a straightforward narrative in favor of brief passages of vivid prose, Abigail Thomas revisits the pivotal moments and the tiny incidents that have shaped her life: pregnancy at 18; single motherhood (of three!) by the age of 26; the joys and frustrations of three marriages; and the death of her second husband, who was her best friend. The stories made of these incidents are startling in their clarity and reassuring in their wisdom.
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I am a reader, writer, and professor specializing in memoir writing. I think every single person has a fascinating life. But, when writing it down, it can be difficult to find a narrative structure that allows the story to feel as unique as the human being writing it. I am drawn to memoirs that have fresh, creative ways of organizing their material—memoirs that go beyond or subvert the conventional, straightforward, chronological approach. After all, our memories are often scattered, fragmented, interrupted, non-linear, or just bizarre; memoirs that capture not only the person’s lived experience but also the messiness of memory itself feel more powerful and true to me.
The best memoirs, to me, are not only records of past events. They are also the record of a writer grappling with how best to tell the story. Jeannie Vanasco takes this idea to an entirely new level in this brilliant meta-memoir that not only chronicles a sexual assault she experienced in college, but also her present-day investigation into her rapist’s memories of the event, his motives, and his present-day thoughts about what happened. This book challenged me to think in new ways—not only about sexual assault, but also about the ways we remember it and write about it.
A New York Times Editors’ Choice and Best Book of the Year at TIME, Esquire, Amazon, Kirkus, and Electric Literature
Jeannie Vanasco has had the same nightmare since she was a teenager. It is always about him: one of her closest high school friends, a boy named Mark. A boy who raped her. When her nightmares worsen, Jeannie decides—after fourteen years of silence—to reach out to Mark. He agrees to talk on the record and meet in person.
Jeannie details her friendship with Mark before and after the assault, asking the brave and urgent question: Is it possible for a…
