Middle East Archives - The Gilmore Guide to Books

Babylonia: A Novel

Catherine — Wed, 05 Feb 2025 08:49:39 +0000

Orphaned as a baby after her mother killed herself, Semiramis has been believed to be cursed or a witch her entire young life. But she doesn’t care what the ignorant people of her tiny Assyrian village think. She knows she’s destined for greatness and when the opportunity arises, she grabs it. This is Babylonia, historical […]

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Ghost Season by Fatin Abbas

Catherine — Wed, 18 Jan 2023 08:54:40 +0000

Ghost Season by Fatin Abbas opens with a charred corpse being found near a humanitarian aid compound that sits in a remote village on the border between north and South Sudan. The body’s discovery is the grim reminder that violent clashes between the government and rebels are increasing. This is the first in a series of […]

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An Unlasting Home

Catherine — Mon, 23 May 2022 04:47:26 +0000

When Sara’s mother was 8 months pregnant, she lied to the airlines and flew from Missouri back to Kuwait, determined that her daughter be born in the country of her ancestors. This is just the first of many miles and countries crossed by the indomitable women in Mai Al-Nakib’s sweeping novel, An Unlasting Home. A […]

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The Arsonists’ City by Hala Alyan

Catherine — Mon, 15 Mar 2021 04:57:41 +0000

From the nucleus of one family, The Arsonists’ City is a novel that spins out between decades and countries. Idris and Mazna met in the 1970s. He lived in Beirut and was studying to be a doctor and she was a young actress living with her family in Damascus. Decades later they are settled in […]

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Sparks Like Stars by Nadia Hashimi

Catherine — Fri, 12 Mar 2021 05:35:13 +0000

When Sitara is 10 years old her life is flipped upside down. She goes from being the beloved only daughter of a high-ranking Afghan advisor to the country’s president to an orphan on the run. It’s 1982 and Communist backed forces stage a military coup in Nadia Hashimi’s new novel, Sparks Like Stars. Sitara’s family […]

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Winter 2021 Books I’m Ready to Read

Catherine — Wed, 06 Jan 2021 05:08:43 +0000

New year, new books! As much as I’m ready for things to be different in 2021, there is a change I’m not looking forward to in the book world. A combination of COVID and the economy means publishers have been getting a lot stingier about sending advance copies of books to book bloggers. For the […]

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2020 Underrated Gems

Catherine — Mon, 21 Dec 2020 05:27:57 +0000

Well, it’s that time of year again…the extravaganza of lists about everything BEST in the world. I’ll be joining the fray, but my two lists (debuts and overall best) won’t be going up until after Christmas. For today, I wanted to give some love to four very different books I thought were gems, but that […]

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Against the Loveless World

Catherine — Fri, 04 Sep 2020 04:38:51 +0000

Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa is about Nahr, whose name means “river”, in Arabic. She has been in solitary confinement for 16 years in a cell she calls the Cube somewhere in modern-day Israel. For her, time has no meaning. Her environment is so strictly controlled that she doesn’t know when the shower will […]

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8 Fall 2020 Books I’m Ready to Read

Catherine — Wed, 02 Sep 2020 04:28:48 +0000

September is here and fall (sort of) so I’ve got to pull myself out of my summer funk and get re-energized for reading. I feel as if I need to keep apologizing, because despite my best efforts at taking review breaks, I’m still struggling to get my mojo back and to post regularly. I […]

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A Door in the Earth

Catherine — Fri, 20 Sep 2019 07:35:15 +0000

Parveen is like most young women her age—graduating college, but not sure what she wants to do with her degree in medical anthropology. Until she reads a memoir, written by a man who goes to Afghanistan and after a traumatic incident that left a woman dead from giving birth, founds and funds a women’s health […]

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