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Recommendations based on ساق البامبوby سعود السنعوسي
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The Forty Rules of Love
by Elif Shafak
A story of romance and spiritual enlightenment, exploring the teachings of a Sufi master.
Ella Rubenstein is forty years old and unhappily married when she takes a job as a reader for a literary agent. Her first assignment is to read and report on Sweet Blasphemy , a novel written by a ... (Goodreads)
Blindness
by José Saramago
A society is plunged into chaos when everyone suddenly loses their sight.
Blindness is the story of an unexplained mass epidemic of blindness afflicting nearly everyone in an unnamed city, and the social breakdown that swiftly follows. The novel follows the misfortune of a ... (Wikipedia)
The Bastard of Istanbul
by Elif Shafak
Exploring the shared history between Turkey and the US while uncovering secrets of a family’s past.
From one of Turkey’s most acclaimed and outspoken writers, a novel about the tangled histories of two families. In her second novel written in English, Elif Shafak confronts her country’s violent ... (Goodreads)
The Broken Wings
by Kahlil Gibran
A philosophical tale of love and loss, exploring the journey of life and death.
This is the exquisitely tender story of love that beats desperately against the taboos of Oriental tradition. With great sensitivity, Gibran describes his passion as a youth for Selma Karamy, the ... (Goodreads)
Zorba the Greek
by Nikos Kazantzakis
A man embarks on a journey of self-discovery, learning to embrace life with gusto and joy.
The book opens in a café in Piraeus , just before dawn on a gusty autumn morning. The year is most likely 1916. The narrator, a young Greek intellectual, resolves to set aside his books for a few ... (Wikipedia)
Sophie's World
by Jostein Gaarder
A journey of philosophical discovery told through a young girl's exploration of the world.
Sophie Amundsen is a 14-year-old girl who lives in Lillesand , Norway. The book begins with Sophie receiving two messages in her mailbox and a postcard addressed to Hilde Møller Knag. Afterwards, she ... (Wikipedia)
The Dream of a Ridiculous Man
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
A man's quest for happiness and meaning, resulting in a journey of self-realization.
The story opens with the narrator wandering the streets of St. Petersburg . He is contemplating the ridiculousness of his own life, and his recent realization that nothing matters to him any more. It ... (Wikipedia)
Mornings in Jenin
by Susan Abulhawa
A Palestinian family's generations-long journey, struggling for identity and freedom.
A heart-wrenching, powerfully written novel that could do for Palestine what, The Kite Runner, did for Afghanistan. Forcibly removed from the ancient village of Ein Hod by the newly formed state of ... (Goodreads)
Daddy-Long-Legs
by Jean Webster
A young girl's coming-of-age story, learning to navigate the world of adulthood.
Jerusha Abbott was brought up at the John Grier Home, an old-fashioned orphanage . The children were completely dependent on charity and had to wear other people's cast-off clothes. Jerusha's unusual ... (Wikipedia)
Palace Walk
by Naguib Mahfouz
An exploration of family life in Cairo during the 1920s, uncovering secrets and tensions in the everyday.
al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad is the tyrannical head of his household, demanding total, unquestioning obedience from his wife, Amina, his sons, Yasin, Fahmy and Kamal, and his daughters, Khadija and ... (Wikipedia)
The Prophet
by Kahlil Gibran
Collection of poetic musings about life, spirituality, and love.
Kahlil Gibran’s masterpiece, The Prophet, is one of the most beloved classics of our time. Published in 1923, it has been translated into more than twenty languages, and the American editions alone ... (Goodreads)
The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly
by Sun-mi Hwang
A hen's quest to break free of her mundane life and fulfill her dream of flying.
A Korean, Charlotte's Web,More than 2 million copies sold, This is the story of a hen named Sprout. No longer content to lay eggs on command, only to have them carted off to the market, she glimpses ... (Goodreads)
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
by Patrick Süskind
A murder mystery set in 18th century France, exploring the depths of human obsession.
An acclaimed bestseller and international sensation, Patrick Suskind's classic novel provokes a terrifying examination of what happens when one man's indulgence in his greatest passion—his sense of ... (Goodreads)
Leo Africanus
by Amin Maalouf
An epic historical novel, tracing the journey of a North African explorer and diplomat in the 16th century.
"I, Hasan the son of Muhammad the weigh-master, I, Jean-Leon de Medici, circumcised at the hand of a barber and baptized at the hand of a pope, I am now called the African, but I am not from Africa, ... (Goodreads)
Please Look After Mom
by Shin Kyung-sook
A family's journey of grief and healing following the disappearance of their mother.
When sixty-nine-year-old So-Nyo is separated from her husband among the crowds of the Seoul subway station , her family begins a desperate search to find her. Yet as long-held secrets and private ... (Wikipedia)
Season of Migration to the North
by Tayeb Salih
A stranger arrives in a small Sudanese village, stirring up dark secrets from the past.
After years of study in Europe, the young narrator of Season of Migration to the North returns to his village along the Nile in the Sudan. It is the 1960s, and he is eager to make a contribution to ... (Goodreads)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
by Milan Kundera
A story of love and loss in a politically turbulent Czechoslovakia.
In The Unbearable Lightness of Being , Milan Kundera tells the story of a young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing and one of his mistresses and ... (Goodreads)
Chess Story
by Stefan Zweig
A chess master's attempt to regain his lost skill, and the psychological battle he faces.
The narrator opens the story on a passenger liner traveling from New York to Buenos Aires. Driven to mental anguish as the result of total isolation by the Nazis , Dr B, a securities expert hiding ... (Wikipedia)
Eleven Minutes
by Paulo Coelho
A young woman's journey of self-discovery and sexual liberation.
Eleven Minutes is the story of Maria, a young girl from a Brazilian village, whose first innocent brushes with love leave her heartbroken. At a tender age, she becomes convinced that she will never ... (Goodreads)
Samarkand
by Amin Maalouf
Epic tale of a man's journey to discover his identity and the truths of his ancestry.
The first half of the story is set in Persia (present day Iran ) and Central Asia in the 11th century, and revolves around the scientist, philosopher, and poet Omar Khayyám . It recounts the creation ... (Wikipedia)
The Architect's Apprentice
by Elif Shafak
A young boy becomes the apprentice of the chief architect of the Ottoman Empire, and navigates through love, war, and the construction of Istanbul's most iconic buildings.
From the acclaimed author of, The Bastard of Istanbul, a colorful, magical tale set during the height of the Ottoman Empire In her latest novel, Elif Shafak spins an epic tale spanning nearly a ... (Goodreads)
The Overcoat
by Nikolai Gogol
A tale of a lowly bureaucrat's journey to reclaim his sense of self-worth.
The story narrates the life and death of titular councillor Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin (Russian: Акакий Акакиевич Башмачкин), an impoverished government clerk and copyist in the Russian capital of ... (Wikipedia)
The Merchant of Venice
by William Shakespeare
A tale of justice, mercy, and revenge, a struggle between religious and secular law.
Bassanio, a young Venetian of noble rank, wishes to woo the beautiful and wealthy heiress Portia of Belmont. Having squandered his estate, he needs 3,000 ducats to subsidise his expenditures as a ... (Wikipedia)
Notes from Underground
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
A portrait of the struggles of a troubled man, exploring his inner turmoil.
The novel is divided into two parts. Serving as an introduction into the mind of the narrator, the first part of Notes from Underground is split into nine chapters: The narrator observes that utopian ... (Wikipedia)
The Night in Lisbon
by Erich Maria Remarque
Two refugees meet in Lisbon during WWII and share their stories of love, loss, and survival.
The story takes place in the opening months of World War II. Josef Schwarz is a refugee who offers his visa and tickets for America to another refugee desperate to leave Lisbon. He does this in ... (Wikipedia)
Kafka on the Shore
by Haruki Murakami
A surreal journey of self-discovery, exploring the boundaries between the real and surreal.
Comprising two distinct but interrelated plots, the narrative runs back and forth between both plots, taking up each plotline in alternating chapters. The odd-numbered chapters tell the 15-year-old ... (Wikipedia)
And the Mountains Echoed
by Khaled Hosseini
Interconnected stories of family and love, tracing the consequences of decisions made throughout life.
The novel opens in the year 1952. Saboor, an impoverished farmer from the fictional village of Shadbagh, decides to sell his three-year-old daughter Pari to a wealthy, childless couple in Kabul. ... (Wikipedia)
Immortality
by Milan Kundera
An exploration of the human desire for immortality and the implications of eternity.
Divided into seven parts, Immortality centers on Agnes, her husband Paul and her sister Laura. Part One: the Face establishes these characters. Part Two: Immortality depicts Goethe 's fraught ... (Wikipedia)
The Insulted and Humiliated
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
A story of revenge, focusing on morality and redemption.
Natasha leaves her parents' home and runs away with Alyosha (prince Alexey) – the son of Prince Valkovsky. As a result of his pain, her father, Nikolai, curses her. The only friend that remains by ... (Wikipedia)
Alamut
by Vladimir Bartol
A philosophical quest for power and truth, set in medieval Persia.
The novel is set in the 11th century at the fortress of Alamut , which was seized by the leader of the Ismailis , Hassan-i Sabbah or Sayyiduna (سیدنا, "Our Master"). At the start of the story, he is ... (Wikipedia)
