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Recommendations based on حديث الصباح والمساءby Naguib Mahfouz
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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)
Midaq Alley
by Naguib Mahfouz
A story of life in a small Egyptian alleyway, exploring the interwoven lives of its inhabitants.
Never has Nobel Prize-winner Naguib Mahfouz's talent for rich and luxurious storytelling been more evident than in Midaq Alley , which centers around the residents of one of the hustling, teeming ... (Goodreads)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
Hard Times
by Charles Dickens
A grim tale of a Victorian industrial city, highlighting its struggles of poverty, injustice and strife.
"My satire is against those who see figures and averages, and nothing else," proclaimed Charles Dickens in explaining the theme of this classic novel. Published in 1854, the story concerns one Thomas ... (Goodreads)
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
by Milan Kundera
An exploration of the power of memory and the meaning of life through a series of interconnected stories.
The first section occurs in 1971 and is the story of Mirek, as he explores his memories of Zdena. Knowing that he loved this ugly woman has left a blemish, and he hopes to rectify this by destroying ... (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)
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)
The House of the Dead
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Prisoners of a Siberian labor camp struggle to survive in a harsh and oppressive environment.
Accused of political subversion as a young man, Fyodor Dostoyevsky was sentenced to four years of hard labor at a Siberian prison camp — a horrifying experience from which he developed this ... (Goodreads)
Storm and Silence
by Robert Thier
In Victorian England, a headstrong girl disguises herself as a boy to become a secretary, but her employer is a chauvinistic businessman who challenges her at every turn.
Freedom – that is what Lilly Linton wants most in life. Not marriage, not a brood of squalling brats, and certainly not, love, thank you very much! But freedom is a rare commodity in 19th-century ... (Barnes & Noble)
Sense & Sensibility
by Joanna Trollope
Modern retelling of Jane Austen's classic novel, exploring the lives and loves of the Dashwood sisters in contemporary England.
John Dashwood promised his dying father that he would take care of his half sisters. But his wife, Fanny, has no desire to share their newly inherited estate with Belle Dashwood's daughters. When she ... (Goodreads)
The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving
by Jonathan Evison
A man becomes a caregiver for a disabled teenager and embarks on a road trip, discovering the true meaning of life and friendship.
The book (and adapted film) follow a 39 year old man who has experienced personal tragedy and is currently climbing out of depression and grief. His estranged wife has been waiting for months for him ... (Wikipedia)
The Ghost Next Door
by R.L. Stine
A new family moves in next door, but strange things start happening. Hannah suspects her neighbor might be a ghost.
Hannah Fairchild is startled to wake up from a horrific nightmare to find that the empty house next door has suddenly been sold, as if overnight, and the son of the family somehow has the ability to ... (Goodreads)
Monday Mourning
by Kathy Reichs
Forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan investigates a series of murders involving young girls in Montreal.
The plot of the story revolves around Brennan trying to decipher the clues left behind by the skeletons of three girls found in a pizza parlor basement in Montreal, Quebec , Canada, which has a ... (Wikipedia)
Welcome to Camp Nightmare
by R.L. Stine
Billy's summer camp turns out to be a nightmare as strange things start happening and campers disappear.
Welcome to Camp Nightmare It's the little camp of horrors! Next summer you'll stay home ... if you survive! Billy thinks that life at camp is a bit creepy, but when other campers start to disappear ... (Goodreads)
Still Alice
by Lisa Genova
A woman's struggle to hold on to her identity in the face of a devastating diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer's disease.
Still Alice is a compelling debut novel about a 50-year-old woman's sudden descent into early onset Alzheimer's disease, written by first-time author Lisa Genova, who holds a Ph. D in neuroscience ... (Goodreads)
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
by Robert Louis Stevenson
A man's internal struggle between good and evil forces, as he attempts to reconcile his dual personalities.
Gabriel John Utterson and his cousin Richard Enfield reach the door of a large house on their weekly walk. Enfield tells Utterson that months ago, he saw a sinister-looking man named Edward Hyde ... (Wikipedia)
Night of the Living Dummy
by R.L. Stine
A ventriloquist's dummy comes to life and terrorizes a family.
When twins Lindy and Kris find a ventriloquist's dummy in a Dumpster, Lindy decides to "rescue" it, and she names it Slappy. But Kris is green with envy. It's not fair. Why does Lindy get to have all ... (Goodreads)
War and Peace
by Leo Tolstoy
Epic tale of war, peace, and love, focusing on the lives of five aristocratic families.
The novel begins in July 1805 in Saint Petersburg , at a soirée given by Anna Pavlovna Scherer—the maid of honour and confidante to the dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna . Many of the main characters ... (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)
Death Comes as the End
by Agatha Christie
A murder mystery set in Ancient Egypt, with a clever detective determined to solve the case.
The novel is primarily written from the perspective of Renisenb, a young widow reacquainting herself with her family when her father Imhotep, a successful but pompous and short-sighted mortuary ... (Wikipedia)
The Jane Austen Book Club
by Karen Joy Fowler
Five women and one man form a book club to discuss Jane Austen's novels, but end up discussing their own lives and relationships.
The Extraordinary, New York Times, Bestseller In California's central valley, five women and one man join to discuss Jane Austen's novels. Over the six months they get together, marriages are tested, ... (Goodreads)
The Fifth Child
by Doris Lessing
A family's life is upended when the fifth child arrives, disrupting the balance of their world.
When David Lovatt meets Harriet at an office party, they both immediately fall in love. They both share the same conservative outlooks, which they perceive to be a rarity in the London of the 1960s. ... (Wikipedia)
The Man Who Laughs
by Victor Hugo
A man with a disfiguring facial deformity, who is sold into a life of suffering and exploitation.
The novel is divided into two parts: La mer et la nuit ( The sea and the night ) and Par ordre du roi ( On the king's command ). In late 17th-century England, a homeless boy named Gwynplaine rescues ... (Wikipedia)
Queen Margot
by Alexandre Dumas
An epic tale of political and religious intrigue, filled with love and revenge.
The story begins in Paris in August 1572, during the reign of the Valois King Charles IX , it is the French Wars of Religion . The protagonist is Marguerite de Valois , better known as Margot, the ... (Wikipedia)
Tartuffe
by Molière
A comedic satire about a religious hypocrite who attempts to manipulate a family for his own gain.
Orgon's family is up in arms because Orgon and his mother have fallen under the influence of Tartuffe, a pious fraud (and a vagrant prior to Orgon's help). Tartuffe pretends to be pious and to speak ... (Wikipedia)
