100 books like The Graves of Tarim

By Engseng Ho,

Here are 100 books that The Graves of Tarim fans have personally recommended if you like The Graves of Tarim. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Origins of Islamic Reformism in Southeast Asia: Networks of Malay-Indonesian and Middle Eastern 'Ulama' in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

Sumanto Al Qurtuby Author Of Saudi Arabia and Indonesian Networks: Migration, Education, and Islam

From my list on Islam, travel, and travelers in Arabia.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an American-trained Indonesian anthropologist, teacher, writer, researcher, and academic nomad who has lived and taught at a Saudi university. I have travelled since childhood. When I was a kid or teenager, I journeyed to various places and cities for schooling away from my home village (and parents) in the isolated highlands of Central Java. I also travelled for shepherding my goats which I did after school. So, I love to travel, learn many things from my travel, and as a teacher of Anthropology of Travel, I have always been fascinated by literature on travel whatever its forms ranging from pilgrimage and nomadism to migration and tourism.   

Sumanto's book list on Islam, travel, and travelers in Arabia

Sumanto Al Qurtuby Why did Sumanto love this book?

This is an extremely fine book that traces and discusses the origins or intellectual roots of Islamic renewal and reformism in Indonesia (and the Malay world in general). What makes this book special is that, among others, the author used rare academic sources (e.g., Arabic biographic dictionaries that have never before been analyzed or utilized as research materials) to reconstruct the history of Indonesia’s Islamic reformism. The book shows that an orthodox form of Islam in Southeast Asia was the product of intellectual and religious networks between Muslim societies in the archipelago and the Malay-Indonesian Islamic scholars in the Haramain (Mecca and Medina) who transmitted Islamic scholarships, knowledge, and discourses to them since the seventeenth century. 

By Azyumardi Azra,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Origins of Islamic Reformism in Southeast Asia as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Islamic renewal and reformism is an ongoing process which is commonly thought to have started only in the twentieth century. Professor Azra's meticulous study, using sources from the Middle East itself, shows how scholars in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were reconstructing the intellectual and socio-moral foundation of Muslim societies. Drawing on Arabic biographic dictionaries which have never before been analysed or used as research materials, Professor Azra illuminates a previously inaccessible period of history to show the development of the Middle Eastern heritage in the Indonesian archipelago.

The reader can trace the formation and expression of Indonesian Islam and…


Book cover of Indonesians and Their Arab World: Guided Mobility among Labor Migrants and Mecca Pilgrims

Sumanto Al Qurtuby Author Of Saudi Arabia and Indonesian Networks: Migration, Education, and Islam

From my list on Islam, travel, and travelers in Arabia.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an American-trained Indonesian anthropologist, teacher, writer, researcher, and academic nomad who has lived and taught at a Saudi university. I have travelled since childhood. When I was a kid or teenager, I journeyed to various places and cities for schooling away from my home village (and parents) in the isolated highlands of Central Java. I also travelled for shepherding my goats which I did after school. So, I love to travel, learn many things from my travel, and as a teacher of Anthropology of Travel, I have always been fascinated by literature on travel whatever its forms ranging from pilgrimage and nomadism to migration and tourism.   

Sumanto's book list on Islam, travel, and travelers in Arabia

Sumanto Al Qurtuby Why did Sumanto love this book?

To my knowledge, academic studies that emphasize the study of Indonesian Muslim pilgrims and labor migrants in Saudi Arabia (and other Gulf states) are limited. Hence, this book is undoubtedly significant for both academic and non-academic communities. I have also noticed that the ways in which the author selected field sites (Yogyakarta and Madura, whose societies represent two distinctive Muslim groups in Indonesia) and presented her basic arguments in this study are also fresh and informative. The author argues that the pilgrims’ and migrants’ perceptions, opinions, understandings, and constructions of “Arabness” and the Arab world, as well as their mobility (pilgrimage or migration) to Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf countries, are strongly shaped, influenced and guided by a variety of structures and agencies. This, in my view, is certainly important findings.  

By Mirjam Lücking,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Indonesians and Their Arab World as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Indonesians and Their Arab World explores the ways contemporary Indonesians understand their relationship to the Arab world. Despite being home to the largest Muslim population in the world, Indonesia exists on the periphery of an Islamic world centered around the Arabian Peninsula. Mirjam Lucking approaches the problem of interpreting the current conservative turn in Indonesian Islam by considering the ways personal relationships, public discourse, and matters of religious self-understanding guide two groups of Indonesians who actually travel to the Arabian Peninsula-labor migrants and Mecca pilgrims-in becoming physically mobile and making their mobility meaningful. This concept, which Lucking calls "guided mobility,"…


Book cover of A History of Jeddah: The Gate to Mecca in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Sumanto Al Qurtuby Author Of Saudi Arabia and Indonesian Networks: Migration, Education, and Islam

From my list on Islam, travel, and travelers in Arabia.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an American-trained Indonesian anthropologist, teacher, writer, researcher, and academic nomad who has lived and taught at a Saudi university. I have travelled since childhood. When I was a kid or teenager, I journeyed to various places and cities for schooling away from my home village (and parents) in the isolated highlands of Central Java. I also travelled for shepherding my goats which I did after school. So, I love to travel, learn many things from my travel, and as a teacher of Anthropology of Travel, I have always been fascinated by literature on travel whatever its forms ranging from pilgrimage and nomadism to migration and tourism.   

Sumanto's book list on Islam, travel, and travelers in Arabia

Sumanto Al Qurtuby Why did Sumanto love this book?

Jeddah in the western Arabia has long been an entrance for Muslim pilgrims around the world as well as a terminus for global-international trade routes for centuries or even millennia due to its strategic location in the coastal Red Sea. Yet, surprisingly, the region has not been the subject of a serious academic inquiry. Scholars of Saudi Arabia generally focus on Mecca and Medina, two most important pilgrimage sites for Muslims. To my knowledge, this book is the first biography of Jeddah that traces the city's urban history, development, and cosmopolitanism from the late Ottoman period to its contemporary era. The author in particular examines how Jeddah’s different groups of travelers (migrants, pilgrims, etc.) interrelated in a changing urban space and how their economic behaviors and activities contributed to the shape of the city’s socio-political framework. 

By Ulrike Freitag,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A History of Jeddah as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Known as the 'Gate to Mecca' or 'Bride of the Red Sea', Jeddah has been a gateway for pilgrims travelling to Mecca and Medina and a station for international trade routes between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean for centuries. Seen from the perspective of its diverse population, this first biography of Jeddah traces the city's urban history and cosmopolitanism from the late Ottoman period to its present-day claim to multiculturalism, within the conservative environment of the Arabian Peninsula. Contextualising Jeddah with developments in the wider Muslim world, Ulrike Freitag investigates how different groups of migrants interacted in a changing…


Book cover of Pilgrims and Sultans: The Hajj Under the Ottomans

Sumanto Al Qurtuby Author Of Saudi Arabia and Indonesian Networks: Migration, Education, and Islam

From my list on Islam, travel, and travelers in Arabia.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an American-trained Indonesian anthropologist, teacher, writer, researcher, and academic nomad who has lived and taught at a Saudi university. I have travelled since childhood. When I was a kid or teenager, I journeyed to various places and cities for schooling away from my home village (and parents) in the isolated highlands of Central Java. I also travelled for shepherding my goats which I did after school. So, I love to travel, learn many things from my travel, and as a teacher of Anthropology of Travel, I have always been fascinated by literature on travel whatever its forms ranging from pilgrimage and nomadism to migration and tourism.   

Sumanto's book list on Islam, travel, and travelers in Arabia

Sumanto Al Qurtuby Why did Sumanto love this book?

Concerning the study of the hajj (i.e. Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca), I consider this book is pioneering primarily because it utilizes original sources and documentation left by Ottoman administrators to depict and recreate uneasy experiences of the pilgrims’ everyday life in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries of Arabia. During these centuries, Mecca was under the control and authority of the Ottoman sultans, and the hajj pilgrimage was an extremely tough journey: long, arduous, and fraught with danger. This work has contributed to our understandings of the pilgrims’ conditions and mundane activities and the sultans’ policies of the pilgrimage.  

By Suraiya Faroqhi,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Pilgrims and Sultans as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The pilgrimage to Mecca - the hajj - is a major aspect of the Islamic religion, yet little has been written about its history or of the conditions under which thousands of pilgrims from far flung regions of the Islamic world travelled to the heart of the Arabian peninsula. This pioneering book concentrates on the pilgrimage in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when Mecca was ruled by the Ottoman sultans. At a time when, for the majority of the faithful, the journey was long, arduous and fraught with danger, the provision of food, water, shelter and protection for pilgrims presented…


Book cover of A Chip Shop in Poznan: My Unlikely Year in Poland

R.A. Dalkey Author Of The Road to Innamincka

From my list on crazy travel adventure you get to live vicariously.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a stubborn ox who won’t ever accept that something can’t be done. Tell me I can’t be a Formula 1 reporter for a particular magazine on the other side of the world, and I’ll embark on a journalism degree. Tell me I can’t be a professional golfer, and I’ll quit my job to get practicing. Tell me I can’t camp here, and up goes my hammock. Tell me to grow up and stop fantasising about driving road trains in Australia, and you’re basically insisting I get a truck licence. I like that being this way creates unique stories and that I have a little talent for writing them down.

R.A.'s book list on crazy travel adventure you get to live vicariously

R.A. Dalkey Why did R.A. love this book?

How could I not love a book written by a fellow ‘Brexit refugee’? Around the same time Ben Aitken moved to Poland in the wake of the momentous 2016 UK referendum, I fled to Austria. Although we had different motives and his time in Poznan was a temporary adventure, I had to know how it went! And I wasn’t disappointed. There’s dry humour, plenty of self-deprecation, and lots of interesting trivia, which I like. Best of all, it’s a unique premise: “Britain has just reacted to ‘Poles taking our low-paying jobs’. So let me be the first Brit to try going to Poland as a manual labourer, and see how that pans out.” To learn the answers, and have your thoughts provoked whilst being thoroughly entertained, I recommend joining Aitken in the chip shop!

By Ben Aitken,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Chip Shop in Poznan as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A TIMES BESTSELLER

'One of the funniest books of the year' - Paul Ross, talkRADIO

WARNING: CONTAINS AN UNLIKELY IMMIGRANT, AN UNSUNG COUNTRY, A BUMPY ROMANCE, SEVERAL SHATTERED PRECONCEPTIONS, TRACES OF INSIGHT, A DOZEN NUNS AND A REFERENDUM.

Not many Brits move to Poland to work in a fish and chip shop.

Fewer still come back wanting to be a Member of the European Parliament.

In 2016 Ben Aitken moved to Poland while he still could. It wasn't love that took him but curiosity: he wanted to know what the Poles in the UK had left behind. He flew to…


Book cover of Sounds of Crossing: Music, Migration, and the Aural Poetics of Huapango Arribeño

Jada Benn Torres and  Gabriel A. Torres Colón Author Of Genetic Ancestry: Our Stories, Our Pasts

From my list on what happens when biology and culture collide.

Why are we passionate about this?

We met as “baby anthropologists” in graduate school and have stuck together ever since. With Jada’s training in genetic anthropology and Gabriel’s training in cultural anthropology, we’ve accompanied each other to our various field sites throughout the Caribbean, Spain, and the US Midwest. Aside from our book, each of us has authored many peer-reviewed publications, including an award-winning article in the journal Human Biology. Though we both have our own independent research agendas, our interests overlap on several topics including genetic ancestry. Our different anthropological training and our mutual love for our discipline always makes for interesting perspectives on a variety of topics.

Jada's book list on what happens when biology and culture collide

Jada Benn Torres and  Gabriel A. Torres Colón Why did Jada love this book?

Alex Chávez is a cultural anthropologist, but he is also a musician, and his artistic abilities are on full display in this beautifully narrated and analytically sharp ethnography of huapango arribeño across the US-Mexican social spaces. Chávez allows us to reimagine Mexican migrants as much more than the protagonists of the social problem of migration. Instead, we can see how expressive culture is a significant aspect of migrant lives. This book is also a theoretical heavyweight for those looking for more than a beautifully crafted ethnographic description.

By Alex E. Chavez,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Sounds of Crossing as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In Sounds of Crossing Alex E. Chavez explores the contemporary politics of Mexican migrant cultural expression manifest in the sounds and poetics of huapango arribeno, a musical genre originating from north-central Mexico. Following the resonance of huapango's improvisational performance within the lives of audiences, musicians, and himself-from New Year's festivities in the highlands of Guanajuato, Mexico, to backyard get-togethers along the back roads of central Texas-Chavez shows how Mexicans living on both sides of the border use expressive culture to construct meaningful communities amid the United States' often vitriolic immigration politics. Through Chavez's writing, we gain an intimate look at…


Book cover of Unsettled

Cordelia Jensen Author Of Every Shiny Thing

From my list on middle grade verse published in 2021.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have written three verse novels; two YA, Skyscraping and The Way the Light Bends, and one half-verse, half-prose MG Every Shiny Thing (co-authored with Laurie Morrison.) I teach verse novel specific classes for The Highlights Foundation and The Writing Barn, on topics like plotting verse novels, creating an image system in verse novels, revising verse novels. I also edit verse novel manuscripts, working with one private student per month. Along with this, I’ve taught a Writing for Children class at Bryn Mawr College. Presently, I teach kids and teens through the Kelly Yang Project and run a local, kids’ literary journal here in Philadelphia called the Mt. Airy Musers. 

Cordelia's book list on middle grade verse published in 2021

Cordelia Jensen Why did Cordelia love this book?

Unsettled by Reem Faruqi, loosely based on the author’s own story, chronicles the experience of Nurah, a thirteen-year-old girl who moves from Pakistan to Georgia. She experiences racism and prejudice in a variety of forms, she makes new friends, discovers new passions, undergoes loss, and learns to adjust to a vastly different place. Many verse novels tell stories of immigration, but this one stands for its consistent lyricism and its honest, moving portrayal of a coming-of-age experience that is at once specific and universal. 

By Reem Faruqi,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Unsettled as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 9, 10, 11, and 12.

What is this book about?

A Bank Street Best Children’s Book of the Year · Kid's Indie Next List · Featured in Today Show’s AAPI Heritage Month list · A Kirkus Children's Best Book of 2021 · A National Council of Teachers of English Notable Verse Novel · Jane Addams 2022 Children’s Book Award Finalist · 2021 Nerdy Award Winner · Muslim Bookstagram Award Winner for Best Middle School Book

For fans of Other Words for Home and Front Desk, this powerful, charming immigration story follows a girl who moves from Karachi, Pakistan, to Peachtree City, Georgia, and must find her footing in a new…


Book cover of Welcome to Fairyland: Queer Miami Before 1940

Julie Hardwick Author Of Sex in an Old Regime City: Young Workers and Intimacy in France, 1660-1789

From my list on the history of sex.

Why am I passionate about this?

Like most people, I find the history of sex and everything associated with it fascinating! It’s often been difficult to document and interpret the complexities about heterosexuality, gender identity, and same-sex desire as well as women’s reproductive health which is intimately (although not exclusively of course) linked to sex. We are in a golden age of fantastic work on so many aspects of the history of sex. Apart from the intrinsic interest of these books, I think they provide such an important context for our very lively and often very intense contemporary legal, political, and cultural debates over sex in all its forms.

Julie's book list on the history of sex

Julie Hardwick Why did Julie love this book?

Move over New York and Providence, Julio Capó illuminates in this dazzling book about queer life in Miami before World War II how an important early twentieth-century gay community emerged at the intersection of tourism, migration, and trade around the Caribbean. He not only provides a fascinating account of gay Miami but uses that community to tell a wider story about the history of the region.

By Julio Capó,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Welcome to Fairyland as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Poised on the edge of the United States and at the center of a wider Caribbean world, today's Miami is marketed as an international tourist hub that embraces gender and sexual difference. As Julio Capo Jr. shows in this fascinating history, Miami's transnational connections reveal that the city has been a queer borderland for over a century. In chronicling Miami's queer past from its 1896 founding through World War II, Capo shows the multifaceted ways gender and sexual renegades made the city their own.

Drawing from a multilingual archive, Capo unearths the forgotten history of ""fairyland,"" a marketing term crafted…


Book cover of Just Like Home: Como en Mi Tierra

Rene Colato Lainez Author Of Mamá the Alien / Mamá La Extraterrestre

From my list on the Latino immigrant experience.

Why am I passionate about this?

The topic of immigration is deeply in my heart because I am an immigrant myself. I came from El Salvador to the United States when I was 14 years old. Now, I am a teacher in an elementary school. Most of my students are immigrants or children of immigrants. Children and families immigrate around the world looking for better opportunities. These books were written by immigrant authors or authors who had lived closely with immigrants. The stories are real and describe the authentic journey, and experiences of children and families traveling from their native countries to the United States.

Rene's book list on the Latino immigrant experience

Rene Colato Lainez Why did Rene love this book?

I like this book because the protagonist compares her food, traditions, and weather of her native country and her new country. In both English and Spanish, a young girl shares the story of how she and her family arrived in the United States. She describes her experiences as being "just like home" or "not like home".

By Elizabeth I. Miller, Mira Reisberg (illustrator), Teresa Mlawer (translator)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Just Like Home as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In both English and Spanish, a young girl shares the story of how she and her family arrived in the United States. She describes her experiences as being "just like home" or "not like home."


Book cover of Teacup

Kao Kalia Yang Author Of From the Tops of the Trees

From my list on learning about refugees.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was born in a refugee camp in Thailand. I lived there until I was six. I was a child from America’s Secret War in Laos, a child who knew very little of the outside world before my family sought refuge in America. Much of my life’s work has been devoted to a search for peace, to understand the forces that put families in situations like mine. I have published widely on the topic, written of it in books for both adults and children.

Kao's book list on learning about refugees

Kao Kalia Yang Why did Kao love this book?

In the space where our fears and our hopes live, there is the landscape of our dreams and nightmares. This book lushly carries a boy's search for home to readers everywhere. It's a magical book for it carries a great deal of room for the reader to step into the words and images within. 

By Rebecca Young, Matt Ottley (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Teacup as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 4, 5, 6, and 7.

What is this book about?

A stunning picture book that addresses life’s big journeys with hope, beauty, and reassurance

School Library Journal [STARRED REVIEW!]  
“[A] moving, allegorical tale… inspiring reflection and empathy”
 
Kirkus Reviews [STARRED REVIEW!] 
“A potent discussion starter… Enchanting, beautiful, and full of hope. “
 
Booklist [STARRED REVIEW!]  
“A lyrical tale of leaving home and finding a new one…Thought-provoking and arrestingly beautiful.”

A boy must leave his home and find another. He brings with him a teacup full of earth from the place where he grew up, and sets off to sea. Some days, the journey is peaceful, and the skies are cloudless…


Book cover of The Origins of Islamic Reformism in Southeast Asia: Networks of Malay-Indonesian and Middle Eastern 'Ulama' in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
Book cover of Indonesians and Their Arab World: Guided Mobility among Labor Migrants and Mecca Pilgrims
Book cover of A History of Jeddah: The Gate to Mecca in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

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Interested in Islam, the Indian Ocean, and Southeast Asia?

Islam 128 books
The Indian Ocean 15 books
Southeast Asia 36 books