100 books like The Blind Owl

Straddling the boundaries between academic history and historical non-fiction, this book is difficult, if not impossible, to put down and draws the reader into the rich and multifaceted world of Iran’s history, politics, culture, and religion. The book is narrated through the life and lens of an ayatollah who is caught between tradition and modernity, religiosity and secularism, and east and west, much like Iran itself. Seamlessly weaving the past and present, the book reveals the inherent complexities and contradictions of Iranian identity that have been superimposed on a state and society torn between notions and aspirations of divine and popular sovereignty.       

An engagingly written, fair and balanced history for readers interested in more detail and analysis than is found in my own slim introductory volume. In my view the single best scholarly history of Iran ever written.

Against the backdrop of an unlucky courtship between two young students in today’s Tehran, this entertaining novel uses humour to ridicule the myopic mentality of contemporary Iran’s religious leadership that wishes to see itself as cultured and intellectual.

Shahnameh is the story of the birth of the Iranian people, told in a series of wonderful stories.

In the beginning, in a time of myth and legend, the Persian kings fight the devil, and sometimes they win and sometimes they are tempted into sin. Here are great heroes like the paladin Rostam, wicked queens like the young and beautiful Sudabeh, endlessly scheming against her husband’s son and heir, and the evil serpent-king himself, Zahhak.

These are the legends that have shaped Iranian culture for more than a thousand years, given definitive form in Ferdowsi’s epic tale.

Kristóf (1935-2011) was a Hungarian writer who fled to Switzerland during the war and wrote in French.

The Notebook (the first in the trilogy) is currently number one on my list of all-time favourites. It has all the elements of storytelling that I love: deep, psychological insight into the human heart; adroit use of archetypes, which give the book a timeless, folkloric feel; concision (no waffling) and a poetic, pared-back language that creates a sense of startling immediacy.

Kristóf writes about World War II through the eyes of two young brothers in a Nazi-occupied country (unnamed), and she shocks us awake not through sensationalised violence but through matter-of-fact narration.

It reads like a cross-between dramatic monologue and biblical parable – she stretches the novel form and opens up new possibilities for writing. 

I became a vegetarian at age 13, and although my parents grumbled about having to prepare different foods, they certainly did not react as strongly as Yeong-hye’s family, who treats her decision as a kind of mental illness.

The book starts off like a dark fable, as Yeong-hye pares down her diet and believes she is turning into a tree. As the book progresses, though, it becomes a feminist allegory that asks questions that have only become more urgent since its publication: Who has the right to say what a woman does with her body?

Repila (b.1978) is a Spanish writer, whose work was recommended to me by a UK publisher: “The Boy Who Stole Attila’s Horse is a work of mythic genius that portrays tragic inevitability in a quite terrifyingly awesome way (I mean awesome in the archaic sense)."

The book tells the story of two brothers – Big and Small – trapped in a deep well and slowly starving to death. The language is precise and gut-wrenching, but the narrative reaches beyond its own particulars – compelling as they are – to work as a furious allegory of inequality and injustice.

What I love about the book is precisely this combination: one visceral scene in a well becomes a global commentary on the shadow side of the human. 

Diop is a French writer (b.1966) and this book won the 2021 International Booker Prize.

I don’t seek out war stories, particularly those set in the trenches of the Great War, as this one is, but At Night All Blood Is Black isn’t your standard war novel.

I was hoping for something beyond the mud and the bayonets, the horror and its unending aftermath. I was hoping for an understanding of the paradox of being human and, even though the book is unapologetically bleak, I wasn’t disappointed.

How come? The love between the soldiers, Alfa and Mademba, is at the heart of the story – it’s a key source of its power – and then Diop delivers a blindside, which I’m not going to give away. Read it and disappear. Let the language be your lantern in the dark. 

The grandson of an eminent ayatollah and the son of an Iranian diplomat, Hooman Majd offers perspective on Iran's complex and misunderstood culture through an insightful tour of Iranian culture, introducing fascinating characters from all walks of life, including zealous government officials, tough female cab drivers, and open-minded, reformist ayatollahs. It's an Iran that will surprise readers and challenge Western stereotypes.

This monumental two-volume collection, published in 2021, contains 110 accessible essays by some of the most prominent scholars of Achaemenid Persian history. It introduces the ancient evidence, including written sources, artistic materials, and archaeological remains, for every major region from the Indus to the Nile and the Aegean, and ably surveys the disciplinary history of the modern study of ancient Iran.  Thematic chapters trace numerous aspects of Persia’s imperial world, including geography, languages, gender, religion, court dynamics, administration, communications, war, diplomacy, economics, art, science, and many more. The narrative chapters place the empire’s rise and fall, including but hardly limited to the Persian-Greek wars, into a longer context of Ancient Near Eastern empire formation, setting up valuable insights through comparison with Assyria, Babylonia, and other predecessors.