Here are 100 books that The Shell fans have personally recommended if you like
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Steven A. Cook is the Eni Enrico Mattei senior fellow for the Middle East and Africa studies and director of the International Affairs Fellowship for Tenured International Relations Scholars at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). He is a columnist at Foreign Policy magazine and an expert on Arab and Turkish politics as well as U.S. Middle East policy.
I read Maalouf's book many years ago and it remains one of the best books I have ever read about identity. It helps that he is a gifted writer and that Maalouf's story is so compelling.
Origins, by the world-renowned writer Amin Maalouf, is a sprawling, hemisphere-spanning intergenerational saga.
Set during the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the first quarter of the twentieth, in the mountains of Lebanon and in Havana, Cuba, Origins recounts the family history of the generation of Maalouf's paternal grandfather, Boutros. Why did Boutros, a poet and educator in Lebanon, travel across the globe to rescue his younger brother, Gebrayel, who had settled in Havana?
Maalouf is an energetic and amiable narrator, illuminating the more obscure corners of late Ottoman nationalism, the psychology of Lebanese sectarianism, and the dynamics of…
Sam Dagher is a Lebanese-American journalist and author with more than 15 years of experience reporting on the Middle East and its people. He has lived in Baghdad, Beirut, and Damascus and worked throughout the region. Sam has been committed to telling the region’s stories from the ground up and in the process shedding new light on the root causes of war, extremism, and migration.
Damascus-born Nizar Qabbani, a lawyer by training, abandoned a career in diplomacy in the late 1960s to become one of the Arab world’s most beloved poets. Both his sensual and political poems carry seeds of defiance, rebellion and a quest for liberation from autocratic institutions and rigid social norms. This edition reproduces Qabbani’s own handwritten text of the selected poems.
This translation of Nizar Kabbani's poetry is accompanied by the striking Arabic texts of the poems, penned by Kabbani especially for this collection. Kabbani was a poet of great simplicity - direct, spontaneous, musical, using the language of everyday life. He was a ceasless campaigner for women's rights, and his verses praise the beauty of the female body, and of love. He was an Arab nationalist, yet he criticized Arab dictators and the lack of freedom in the Arab world.
Sam Dagher is a Lebanese-American journalist and author with more than 15 years of experience reporting on the Middle East and its people. He has lived in Baghdad, Beirut, and Damascus and worked throughout the region. Sam has been committed to telling the region’s stories from the ground up and in the process shedding new light on the root causes of war, extremism, and migration.
Pearlman expertly, delicately and lovingly assembles elements from the stories and journeys of close to 90 Syrians into a mosaic “mapped onto Syria’s historical trajectory from authoritarianism to revolution, war, and exile” as she explains in the introduction. For me there are echoes of Maalouf’s Origins in this book: More than a hundred years later and Syrians and Levantines are still having to flee their homelands because of tyranny, conflict and political and social upheaval. Pearlman is an accomplished professor at Northwestern University who speaks Arabic and has spent more than 20 years studying and living in the Middle East. Her expertise and empathy shine through in a book that gives us a chance “to listen to actual Syrians, as human beings,” as she says.
Reminiscent of the work of Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich, an astonishing collection of intimate wartime testimonies and poetic fragments from a cross-section of Syrians whose lives have been transformed by revolution, war, and flight.
Against the backdrop of the wave of demonstrations known as the Arab Spring, in 2011 hundreds of thousands of Syrians took to the streets demanding freedom, democracy and human rights. The government's ferocious response, and the refusal of the demonstrators to back down, sparked a brutal civil war that over the past five years has escalated into the worst humanitarian…
Sam Dagher is a Lebanese-American journalist and author with more than 15 years of experience reporting on the Middle East and its people. He has lived in Baghdad, Beirut, and Damascus and worked throughout the region. Sam has been committed to telling the region’s stories from the ground up and in the process shedding new light on the root causes of war, extremism, and migration.
In a 2019 interview with NPR, Etaf Rum—the daughter of Palestinian immigrants who was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York—said one of her struggles in writing the book was the fear that she was in a way confirming stereotypes about Arabs and Middle Easterners, including “oppression, domestic abuse, and terrorism.” Thankfully Rum overcame these struggles to deliver a courageous, beautiful, and incredibly authentic debut novel that follows the lives of three generations of Palestinian-American women trying to find their voices and identities within the confines of patriarchal and conservative milieus. In a way, the struggles of Rum and her characters mirror the battles that young people throughout the Middle East have been waging against tyranny and oppression since the start of the Arab Spring in 2010.
"Sometimes heroism is loud and dramatic. Other times, it is daring to listen to that quiet voice within and having the courage to follow it. In this story, we see inside the lives of three generations of Palestinian women living in America, struggling and suffering to hear that voice. Etaf Rum has done a great service by sharing these voices with us." -Shilpi Somaya Gowda, New York Times Bestselling Author of SECRET DAUGHTER and THE GOLDEN SON
Three generations of Palestinian-American women living in Brooklyn are torn between individual desire and the…
I am a Christian author who loves to see when relationships, rooted in Christ, succeed. I have been married for 13 years and during that time we have had ups and downs and have found that our relationship would have never succeeded if it wasn’t for Christ and being grounded in his truths. I have sought out ways to cultivate healthy a marriage and often find myself studying and reading on how to best have our relationship reflect Christ and his love for the church.
This book is not about marriage or relationships, but until we recognize who we are in Christ, we will never be 100% satisfied in any relationship.
This book is not an easy, feel-good-about-yourself read, rather a challenge to step into who God created you to be and to embrace the full grace of Jesus Christ. It is a beautiful reminder of the gift of Jesus and what a life lived fully in him can look like.
A more abundant life is within your reach. Join Jess Connolly as she casts a fresh vision for how to break free of cheap grace and empty rule-keeping and change the world rather than be changed by it.
Grace is always good news, but it's not cheap. True grace compels us to change, and that's where holiness comes in. Jess Connolly--beloved writer, speaker, business coach, coauthor of Wild and Free, and author of You Are the Girl for the Job--will be the first to admit that not long ago, like many women, she embraced God's grace, but found herself forgetting…
As a pastor, I thought I had to be a put-together person. Sure, I was allowed to have problems, but I wasn’t really allowed to struggle. Then I was diagnosed with clinical depression. I thought I was alone. I thought I’d have to leave the ministry. I was wrong. I needed to find other people who struggled, though. Through other books, I was able to find them. These books have helped me in my journey so, so much, and if you struggle with depression, I hope it helps with your journey, too!
We’re all broken in so many ways. This book presents a number of letters to different kinds of broken people. Have you been rejected? Are you scared? Are you alone? There are letters here that will touch your heart. They touched mine! I found someone who could speak poetry into my darkness and make me know that I was not alone. Reynolds also points to real hope, so that even in darkness, I could see a shining light.
“The world is broken. I am broken. And my need is dire.”
This stark revelation is the path to divine surrender. Our courage has a chance to flourish when we reach a point where we have no control and nothing to lose.
In a series of letters, Rebecca Reynolds uses imagery to breathe truth to the lonely, the weary, the restless, and afraid. If you feel the ache of brokenness, you will be refreshed by the source of all courage illuminated in these pages. God is available and wants to join you, in the midst of any mess. You can…
I lived and worked in South Korea for four years, where I first became fascinated with the country’s history, from shamans on Jeju island to the twentieth-century politics of Seoul. I’m the author of two novels and dozens of short stories and essays published in venues around the world, many of which feature some element of Korean history. I’m originally from Canada and now teach creative writing at the University of Adelaide in Australia.
I’m so impressed by the sense of closeness, the claustrophobic setting, and the relationships Endo evokes in this novel.
The intensely atmospheric language perfectly matches the storyline, which involves Portuguese Jesuit priests arriving in seventeenth-century Japan, where they are martyred in devastatingly cruel and grotesque ways. But that’s not to say there isn’t beauty in the novel, either.
I found joy in the historical details, setting, and the rendering of individual lives—the characters’ anguish and existential crises speaking to me through imagined centuries and deft translation.
Now a major motion picture directed by Martin Scorsese, starring Liam Neeson, Adam Driver and Andrew Garfield.
With an introduction by Martin Scorsese
'One of the finest historical novels written by anyone, anywhere . . . Flawless' - David Mitchell
Father Rodrigues is an idealistic Portuguese Jesuit priest who, in the 1640s, sets sail for Japan on a determined mission to help the brutally oppressed Japanese Christians and to discover the truth behind unthinkable rumours that his famous teacher Ferreira has renounced his faith. Once faced with the realities of religious persecution Rodrigues himself is forced to make an impossible…
My life was turned upside down because of a devastating divorce, becoming an empty nester, and my job as a theology professor ending. The identity crisis was real because the doing that gave me purpose was gone, yet God had a lesson and a purpose. I realized that what was left was more than what left me, and I understand that the key to resilience is your spiritual foundation. I believe the crown you wear is the treasure; elevation begins head first. Today, I empower women to live life confidently, on their terms, with peace and financial security. I help women reframe their stories, reinvent themselves, and reimagine their future.
I love how Beth Moore invites you to get comfortable yet uncomfortable in her book. She challenges whether you believe big and act on it. This is so important for changing your thoughts and elevating them for more.
The entire book keeps you engaged, reflecting, and dreaming of more. It’s like having a tall glass of lemonade on the porch with a friend who knows you deeply and expects more from you, so she allows you to want it without you realizing you’ve been up-leveled.
This book puts your faith on steroids, and you will believe bigger and actually want to do something about it.
Thirty years in the making, Audacious is a deep dive into the message that has compelled Beth Moore to serve women around the globe. Glancing over the years of ministry behind her and strengthening her resolve to the call before her, she came to the realization that her vision for women was incomplete. It lacked something they were aching for. Something Jesus was longing for. Beth identifies that missing link by digging through Scripture, unearthing life experiences, and spotlighting a turning point with the capacity to infuse any life with holy passion and purpose. What was missing? Well, let's just…
I am a practicing board-certified general surgeon and my writing reflects the medical authenticity of an “insider.” I have divided my professional life between practice in America, and also in East Africa, serving as a surgeon and instructor. I am also a man of grace, who has sought to fight against a legalistic Christianity of my youth. We experience life in story, and fiction is the perfect way to teach the heart concepts of love, and perhaps stir within the reader a longing for something more.
This little book prods us to silence and solitude to recapture the intimacy that we crave but few experience. I have reread this little book many times and it gently reminds me of what is so easily lost in the hurry of modern life. Our present society has pushed these disciplines, not just off the front burner, but off the stove entirely. When solitude and silence are recaptured, we find ourselves at rest, enjoying the presence of our loving Father.
Noise and words and frenzied, hectic schedules dull our senses, closing our ears to His still, small voice and making us numb to His touch.
Charles Swindoll offers all new insights from his own journal to guide people on a journey of intimacy with God. This keepsake book includes pages in Swindoll's handwriting collected in an embossed, antique-looking cover.
I’ve had other Sisters in Christ, but it wasn’t until God introduced me to an amazing woman that I truly started to understand what it meant to be a Sister in Christ. A Sister in Christ is someone who encourages you, speaks the truth in love, and always points you back to God’s truths. She laughs with you, cries with you, and simply loves to do life with you. Sisters in Christ was born from this amazing friendship. To have this type of relationship is truly a blessing from God that needs to be shared in a community of fellow believers.
This book was amazing and the author was incredible with how she brought spiritual truths alive using a fictious group of women that I genuinely grew to love.
It has been five to six years since I’ve read this entire series and I still remember the details of the women’s stories. It shows what it means to live as a Sister in Christ with others in community so wonderfully while pointing people to a closer relationship to God. Amazing series, this is simply the first book!
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