Last week the literary debut City of Sparrows—the raw, emotional story of a young man growing up in Homs, Syria in the ’90s—hit shelves. Because the book’s contents are so… Read more »

Bana al-Abed first tweeted on September 24, 2016. She simply wrote, “I need peace.” At the tender age of seven, Bana has lived the vast majority of her life in the now… Read more »

I’m writing this today in the shadow of fifty-nine cruise missiles launched by my country against Syria in the aftermath of a chemical weapons attack. All of this horror takes place in the shadow of… Read more »

Just yesterday, the New York Times’ Russell Goldman reported that the Syrian civil war has resulted in a quarter of that country’s population fleeing. Those that remain live under the constant threat of… Read more »

Less than two weeks after John Kerry announced that the U.S. was working with the Russian government to establish an (already compromised) ceasefire in Syria, a group of Syrian writers, artists,… Read more »

Samer al-Kadri is one of 3 million Syrian refugees now living in Turkey. A year ago, he opened Pages, the first Arabic-language bookstore in Istanbul, and he even has plans to… Read more »

Book fairs offer strange sights. We all know this. Greater-than-life-sized cutouts of Mitch Albom and John Grisham, for example. Impossible tents featuring brand new carpeting, carpeting that feels very good… Read more »

Used bookstores are places of endless wonders, for obvious reasons. But those that enjoy a proximity to Thom Yorke’s home in Oxford might be especially rewarding. Earlier this week, Nicholas… Read more »

In “a satirical gesture, just to let off some impotent steam,” author Michel Faber has sent a gratis copy of his latest (and, he says, his final) novel, The Book… Read more »

In addition to writing more than 60 mystery novels, Agatha Christie also once wrote a travel memoir about the time she spent in the Middle East, traveling with her archaeologist… Read more »