Here are 80 books that Arabiyya fans have personally recommended if you like
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I am a Lebanese-born, New York-based Caterer, Chef, and Owner of Edy’s Grocer in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Born and raised in Lebanon, I have a passion for Middle Eastern food, culture, and, cookbooks. Growing up with a grandmother who never wrote one recipe down, it's been a journey to nail each recipe she used to make. When I moved to America, it was so hard to find good Middle Eastern cookbooks. Fast forward to 2024, a plethora of talented chefs have written books to help transport me back to Lebanon, sharing our Middle Eastern cultures, flavors, and heritage in such a beautiful way. I am proud of these cookbooks representing the Middle East.
Any of the books Salma Hage comes out with are absolutely amazing. She has the perfect approach to bringing authentic Lebanese food to the Western palate. This beautiful and massive cookbook is the encyclopedia of a Middle Eastern kitchen—it’s like my bible.
It’s been a reference for me throughout the years, like a stepping stone into Lebanese cookbooks. It was one of the first I ever picked up—512 pages with 500 recipes!
The definitive book on Lebanese home cooking, featuring 500 authentic and delicious easy-to-make recipes
On the shores of the eastern Mediterranean and a gateway to the Middle East, Lebanon has long been regarded as having one of the most refined cuisines in the region, blending textures, and ingredients from a myriad of sources. First published as The Lebanese Kitchen and now back in print under its new title, The Lebanese Cookbook, this is the definitive guide, bringing together hundreds of diverse dishes, from light, tempting mezzes and salads, to hearty main courses, grilled meats, sumptuous sweets, and refreshing drinks.
I am a Lebanese-born, New York-based Caterer, Chef, and Owner of Edy’s Grocer in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Born and raised in Lebanon, I have a passion for Middle Eastern food, culture, and, cookbooks. Growing up with a grandmother who never wrote one recipe down, it's been a journey to nail each recipe she used to make. When I moved to America, it was so hard to find good Middle Eastern cookbooks. Fast forward to 2024, a plethora of talented chefs have written books to help transport me back to Lebanon, sharing our Middle Eastern cultures, flavors, and heritage in such a beautiful way. I am proud of these cookbooks representing the Middle East.
What Dina Macki did with this book is beautiful, specifically the visuals and how she showcases the food. Many people, myself included, don’t know much about Omani food specifically, and this book dives deep into the unique food, culture, and region, including beautiful photos taken locally throughout her travels and mini-history lessons.
This is the first Omani cookbook ever written, and she did it well.
With honesty and curiosity, British-born Omani-Zanzibari chef Dina Macki explores the unique foodscape of Oman, in the first Omani cookbook to be written by an Omani chef.
Bahari, meaning "ocean" in Swahili, is a culinary exploration of the rich flavors and history of Omani cuisine, a food culture shaped by boundless coastlines and complex maritime history, with origins and influences spanning Pakistan, Iran, India, the Swahili coast, and Portugal.
In this distinctive cookbook, Dina Macki travels across Oman and Zanzibar, unearthing regional delicacies and recreating the food of her heritage. With more than 100 recipes for meat, fish, vegetables, homemade…
I am a Lebanese-born, New York-based Caterer, Chef, and Owner of Edy’s Grocer in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Born and raised in Lebanon, I have a passion for Middle Eastern food, culture, and, cookbooks. Growing up with a grandmother who never wrote one recipe down, it's been a journey to nail each recipe she used to make. When I moved to America, it was so hard to find good Middle Eastern cookbooks. Fast forward to 2024, a plethora of talented chefs have written books to help transport me back to Lebanon, sharing our Middle Eastern cultures, flavors, and heritage in such a beautiful way. I am proud of these cookbooks representing the Middle East.
Rose from Washington DC’s Maydan also takes a deep dive into her cookbook, from growing up in Lebanon and the recipes she grew up with to opening the restaurant and watching it grow.
It’s cool to see that whole journey represented in a cookbook and Lebanese food on display in another beautiful cookbook.
The debut cookbook from Rose Previte, creator of the Michelin-starred restaurant Maydan and beloved Compass Rose, explores bold flavors, accessible, shareable recipes, and overlapping foodways, spanning from the Middle East to North AfricaRose Previte introduces readers to the eclectic cultures of the region spanning North Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East through food, offering a nuanced, informed, and yet entirely warm and personal way in. Before opening her beloved Washington, DC, restaurants Maydan and Compass Rose, Previte traveled old spice trade routes to learn from home cooks, and it became apparent how adjacent cooking traditions informed and folded back…
I am a Lebanese-born, New York-based Caterer, Chef, and Owner of Edy’s Grocer in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Born and raised in Lebanon, I have a passion for Middle Eastern food, culture, and, cookbooks. Growing up with a grandmother who never wrote one recipe down, it's been a journey to nail each recipe she used to make. When I moved to America, it was so hard to find good Middle Eastern cookbooks. Fast forward to 2024, a plethora of talented chefs have written books to help transport me back to Lebanon, sharing our Middle Eastern cultures, flavors, and heritage in such a beautiful way. I am proud of these cookbooks representing the Middle East.
This cookbook is not really for the everyday home cook. The recipes are not simple, and they are not modernized. And that’s what’s so cool and special about this book and Nasim’s cooking.
She cooks, showcases, and writes about beautiful classic Persian food so well, keeping the integrity of the food and the recipes throughout the book.
The much-anticipated cookbook—an exquisite collection of Persian recipes—from the James Beard–nominated chef of Sofreh, one of Brooklyn’s most acclaimed restaurants.
A Best Book of the Year: Los Angeles Times, Epicurious
"I got lost in the flavors of Nasim’s mint oil, saffron rice pudding, and meltingly tender chicken stew laced with sweet-tart flavors from Pink Lady Apples and sour cherries. Her naan e-barbari is the best!" —Suzy Karadsheh, New York Times best-selling author of The Mediterranean Dish Cookbook
Growing up in Isfahan, a province in central Iran, Nasim Alikhani was a passionate cook from childhood, spending the first years of her…
On a trip to Morocco, immersed in new sounds, smells, sights, and tastes, I was hit with the idea for a novel about a woman in the 11th century, a time when a Berber ruler took over the whole of North Africa and Spain. It led to many years of research and correspondence with historians, and became not one novel, but four, telling the story of four women’s lives that interweave as a newborn empire rises. The books I have listed here were some of the ones that brought the place, the culture, and the era alive for me. I hope they can do the same for you!
Gorgeous to look at, this recipe book lists food that provides a real feast for the senses, from orange blossom-scented cakes to Morocco’s famous tagines (my favourite is with preserved lemons) and everything in between. When I research for historical fiction, food is one of my first ports of call, and this book brought Morocco alive on my table. Read, cook, eat, and be in bliss!
Morocco, Turkey, and Lebanon offer some of the world's most exciting cuisines. In this delectable cookbook, the award-winning, bestselling author of The Book of Jewish Cooking and Claudia Roden's Mediterranean translates the subtle play of flavors and cooking techniques to our own home kitchens.
Interweaving history, stories, and her own observations, she gives us 150 of the most delicious recipes: some of them new discoveries, some reworkings of classic dishes—all of them made even more accessible and delicious for today’s home cook.
From Morocco, the most exquisite and refined cuisine of North Africa: couscous dishes; multilayered pies; delicately flavored tagines;…
Some people travel through food–they seek out authentic foods when they are travelling, visit certain places just to eat their specialties, and travel from their own kitchens when they are at home. This book list is for them. The same has always been the case with me, and I have continued this habit of exploring culture through food in the writing of my own cookbooks. Amber & Rye was the book for which I physically travelled the most, and my partner did all the travel photography too, so it was a family experience.
It’s quite painful opening this book at this moment in time (when Gaza is being bombed), yet it remains one of my favourite food-travel books for the human stories it contains within it.
Khan used to be a human rights campaigner before she started writing cookbooks, and her previous incarnation comes across in the writing. The recipes are colourful and joyous, while also being simple enough to make you want to cook them immediately.
Yasmin Khan unlocks the flavors and fragrances of modern Palestine, from the sun-kissed pomegranate stalls of Akka, on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, through evergreen oases of date plantations in the Jordan Valley, to the fading fish markets of Gaza City.
Palestinian food is winningly fresh and bright, centered around colorful mezze dishes that feature the region's bountiful eggplants, peppers, artichokes, and green beans; slow-cooked stews of chicken and lamb flavored with Palestinian barahat spice blends; and the marriage of local olive oil with earthy za'atar, served in small bowls to accompany toasted breads. It has evolved over several…
Felicia Campbell is a food writer, editor, and author of The Food of Oman: Stories and Recipes from the Gateway to Arabia, the first English-language cookbook on Omani cuisine. She earned her masters degree in culinary anthropology from New York University with a specialization in Middle Eastern foodways. She has lectured on Omani food and food in zones of conflict at the Smithsonian Institute, Leiden University, New York University, and Arizona State University. She is currently developing a documentary series about endangered cuisines around the world.
When I want a truly traditional recipe for an Iraqi dish, or any classic Middle Eastern food, I reach for Nawal Nasrallah’s tome. As a culinary historian, she spares no detail when describing the origins of the food of her homeland, and interspersed with recipes are folkloric tales, cultural tidbits, and bite-sized histories. What you come away with is a deep appreciation of the complex, ancient culinary traditions of the fertile crescent, as well as recipes for the best falafels you’ve ever made (spoiler: use both fava beans and chickpeas for heartier flavor).
This is a concise version of the award-winning and highly acclaimed second edition published in 2013. It is luxuriously illustrated throughout with colour photos, paintings, medieval miniatures and sketches and displays the diversity of the region's traditional culinary practices, delicious and enduring. This edition book contains 300 of the original 400 recipes, all tested and easy to follow, and covers all food categories with ample choice for both vegetarians and meat lovers, and many that will satisfy a sweet tooth. Ingredients and cooking techniques indigenous to the region are fully explained.
Unlike the majority of cookbooks, the book uniquely traces…
My favorite books are funny/sad. In my own writing, I aspire for balance between satire and sympathy, going to dark places and shining a light of hilarity on them. I’m compelled by the psychological complexities of desire, particularly in female characters—flawed, average women, struggling for empowerment. For me, desire is inextricably bound with loss. I’m inspired by loss both superficial and profound, from misplaced keys to dying fathers. Many voices clamor in my head, vying for my attention. I’m interested in ambitious misfits, enraged neurotics, pagans, shamans, healers, dealers, grifters, and spiritual seekers who are forced to adapt, construct, reinvent and contort themselves as reality shifts around them.
Over Easy is the first part of Madge’s story, followed by The Customer is Always Wrong. They can be read separately as each stands on its own, but are best absorbed one after the other. These books are visually inventive and full of unforgettable characters who leap off the page and lodge in your imagination. The story follows Madge, an open-hearted artist who finds refuge and adventure in the wise-cracking, fast-talking, drug-taking world of the Imperial Café where she gets a job as a waitress after being denied financial aid to cover her last year in art school. Full of wit and pathos, Mimi Pond captures the perfect balance of hilarious and heartbreaking, all with fantastic drawings. She makes it look easy!
Over Easy is a brilliant portrayal of a familiar coming-of-age story. After being denied financial aid to cover her last year of art school, Margaret finds salvation from the straight-laced world of college and the earnestness of both hippies and punks in the wisecracking, fast-talking, drug-taking group she encounters at the Imperial Cafe, where she makes the transformation from Margaret to Madge. At first she mimics these new and exotic grown-up friends, trying on the guise of adulthood with some awkward but funny stumbles. Gradually she realizes that the adults she looks up to are a mess of contradictions, misplaced…
I enjoyed writing The Karma Kaper. Just as there's tragedy and comedy in every aspect of our lives there's humor in crime. It's fun bringing that humor to my audience. I also believe in justice for all. Sadly, as American courts are currently more concerned with criminals' rights than victims' rights there are no guarantees victims will receive the justice they deserve. No one can predict if a jury of 12 will find a defendant who has committed a crime guilty. Then, there's the highest court of appeal - fiction! Between the covers of a novel, a crafty writer can ensure just verdicts and devise macabre punishments for the bad guys! It doesn't get any better!
John Steinbeck wrote the Working Days... journals while writing The Grapes of Wrath.
The intent of the journal was to establish a schedule, including a completion date for the novel. What he reveals about his self-doubt is tonic for any writer who is haunted by the same malaise.
Here is the entry for June 18, "…I am assailed with my own ignorance and inability. Honesty. If I can keep an honesty to it… If I can do that it will be all my lack of genius can produce. For no one else knows my lack of ability the way I do. I am pushing against it all the time."
Sometimes, I seem to do a good little piece of work, but when it is done it slides into mediocrity…John Steinbeck’s honesty and humility remind me that self-doubt is a part of the creative process.
John Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath during an astonishing burst of activity between June and October of 1938. Throughout the time he was creating his greatest work, Steinbeck faithfully kept a journal revealing his arduous journey toward its completion.
The journal, like the novel it chronicles, tells a tale of dramatic proportions—of dogged determination and inspiration, yet also of paranoia, self-doubt, and obstacles. It records in intimate detail the conception and genesis of The Grapes of Wrath and its huge though controversial success. It is a unique and penetrating portrait of an emblematic American writer creating an essential American…
I've always loved reading to myself and others. I've been an English teacher for years. I love sharing good books and have the reputation of being a good resource, especially for moms with children. I’m happy to share everything from memoirs and history books to classics and children’s picture books. Walking through a library or a bookstore is a favorite activity, so finding not only new books but excellent books about books is always a treat. I love to understand what makes a book work well as a story, thus books that delve into the richness of a story through personal narrative or literary criticism have been favorites to keep on my shelves.
Mitali Perkins is a winsome, thoughtful writer who easily draws the reader into her discussions of the timelessness of each classic book. This book is a blend of memoir, literary criticism, and moral formation. My favorite part of Steeped in Stories was her contagious love for each book. She reminded me why I loved them, and why I wanted my children to read them when they were younger. Not only does Mitali guide the reader through what makes these books classics in a good sense, she also helps us see them with discerning eyes so that instead of ditching old books for problematic parts, she helps us navigate them with young readers in mind.Steeped in Stories discusses The Hobbit, Heidi, Emily of Deep Valley, Little Women, and The Silver Chair.
The stories we read as children shape us for the rest of our lives. But it is never too late to discover that transformative spark of hope that children's classics can ignite within us.
Award-winning children's author Mitali Perkins grew up steeped in stories—escaping into her books on the fire escape of a Flushing apartment building and, later, finding solace in them as she navigated between the cultures of her suburban California school and her Bengali heritage at home. Now Perkins invites us to explore the promise of seven timeless children's novels for adults living in uncertain times: stories that…
