Here are 100 books that The Slow Road to Tehran fans have personally recommended if you like
The Slow Road to Tehran.
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I’m a writer, living in southwest France since 1995, and previously in Kenya for 20 years. Travel has always been my passion. I’ve written about hiking across France in Best Foot Forward, touring the perimeter by camping car in Travels with Tinkerbelle, cycling through the Marne Valley in The Valley of Heaven and Hell, and a Kenyan safari in Safari Ants, Baggy Pants and Elephants. Recently, due to COVID and with an elderly dog that suffers from separation anxiety, I couldn't leave for any length of time; I satisfy my wanderlust by reading other people’s adventures. My taste is for tales that include plenty of humour, and I’ve selected five which I have particularly enjoyed.
This is possibly the worst cycling adventure ever undertaken. It makes my list because everything that can go wrong does. Her bicycle is too big. Everything is shut. There’s no hot water in the showers. Yet still they pedal on.
Even the Greek island cruise is a disaster.
Acerbic, honest, extremely non-PC, it’s a schadenfreude delight. I rather unkindly couldn’t wait for the next catastrophe to strike this couple, because it made me laugh so much.
“Inspiring proof that you need neither be under 25 nor even bearded to have a terrific adventure.” Alastair Humphreys, Author & Adventurer When Donna and Iain, a couple in their late forties with no previous cycling experience, decide on the spur of the moment to cycle across an entire continent, you can rightly assume things might not go according to plan. Armed with little knowledge but much determination, they attempt a self-supported cycle tour, carrying everything they need and camping along the way, normally the domain of hardy, beardy adventurers or Olympic athletes. Join The Beardless Adventurer and her inconvenience…
I am a journalist who has written books on American history for the general reader but not an academic historian or specialist, though I have the utmost respect for both. I like to think I have an independent mind and that I look for ideas that challenge conventional wisdom but are rooted in good sense and critical intelligence. The books I have recommended here reflect this temperament and, I believe, an innate sense of the comic and absurd. These are desperately needed at a time when people take themselves much too seriously—as in a presidential election year.
I love this book because it might be the quintessential American book. Mark Twain brings an American perspective to his European travels that has, to my mind, never been matched.
His pose—the comic character he creates—is at once naïve and shrewdly intelligent, penetrating in his take on Europe and the Middle East. I love this book, but I also love Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. With Mark Twain, you can’t go wrong.
A beautiful edition with the formatting and all 234 images from the original first edition published in 1869. The cover is from an Antonio Joli painting of Rome. Use Amazon's Lookinside feature to compare this edition with others. You'll be impressed by the differences. Don't be fooled by other versions that have no illustrations or contain very small print. Reading our edition will make you feel that you are back traveling the Mediterranean with Mark. If you like our book, be sure to leave a review!
Published under the full name The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrims' Progress, this…
I developed an interest in the Middle East after taking a class on the Peoples and Cultures of the Middle East and North Africa as an undergraduate student. I later lived and worked in Kuwait for two years and traveled extensively across the Middle East, including to Syria, a country whose hospitality, history, and cultural richness left an indelible impression on me. During subsequent travel to Syria, I became acquainted with the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk, in Damascus. This camp, which physically blended into its surroundings while retaining its Palestinian-ness, ignited my desire to better understand Palestinian refugee identity and the political claims at the heart of this identity.
Kingsley’s The New Odyssey is a journalistic account of what became known during the 2015-2016 period as “Europe’s Refugee Crisis.” It brings a human face to the million or so refugees— a significant number of whom were from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq— who sought asylum in Europe by way of various irregular Mediterranean routes. By embedding himself with the refugees at the center of his book, Kingsley gives an intimate portrait of the reasons Europe became a destination for these refugees and of the violence and hardships they are subjected to at the hands of an unwelcoming Europe.The New Odyssey also provides an in-depth and nuanced portrait of the smugglers who, while by no means idealized in the book, are an easy scapegoat in European attempts to deflect responsibility for the suffering and death of migrants taking the irregular Mediterranean routes. Kingsley’s narrative balances a broad overview of the…
On the day of his son's fourteenth birthday, Hashem al-Souki lay somewhere in the Mediterranean, crammed in a wooden dinghy. His family was relatively safe-at least for the time being-in Egypt, where they had only just settled after fleeing their war-torn Damascus home three years prior. Traversing these unforgiving waters and the treacherous terrain that would follow was worth the slim chance of securing a safe home for his children in Sweden. If he failed, at least he would fail alone.
Hashem's story is tragically common, as desperate victims continue to embark on deadly journeys in search of freedom. Tracking…
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
My book recommendations reflect my experience as a former US government physician-diplomat, based overseas in Russia, Mexico, Europe, and South Asia, where I was involved in working closely with law enforcement and diplomatic negotiators in several highly sensitive, delicate, and dangerous hostage situations, both as a consultant and in providing medical support/care coordination to released hostages. I always found this work to be exhilarating and demanding, and it left me with the highest respect for law enforcement, diplomatic, and mental health professionals who work in this space. As a result, I’ve had additional formal training in hostage negotiation, negotiation psychology, and medical/psychological support to victims.
Daniel Levin’s book is a gripping, gut-wrenching tale of his search for missing young man in Syria during the aftermath of the Arab Spring.
A gifted international negotiator, Levin also tells a very human and tragic tale, with valuable lessons on how negotiators should approach the most dangerous, high-risk negotiations, where the chances of failure and sorrow are extremely high. Levin writes masterfully, and his story overwhelms the reader with his sense of empathy, tragedy, and yes, even hope, in a part of the world where hope is in short supply.
“Riveting . . . Well-written and highly compelling."—Wall Street Journal
“Truly thrilling. Daniel Levin brilliantly conveys both the menace and the evil of Middle Eastern intrigue, and some victories of human kindness over cruelty and despair.”—Daniel Kahneman, New York Times bestselling author of Thinking, Fast and Slow
Daniel Levin was in his New York office when he got a call from an acquaintance with an urgent, cryptic request to meet in Paris. A young man had gone missing in Syria. No government, embassy, or intelligence agency would help. Could he? Would he? So begins a suspenseful, shocking, and at times…
Carlyle Labuschagne was born in South Africa, Johannesburg in the early 1980s. Growing up my imagination always trumped the world around me. I was obsessed with stories, sneaking off to watch them or going off on my own to play out my own. I am now an award-winning, International and USA Today bestselling fiction author – kind of a rare species in my neck of the woods. I write many genres but started off with mild Science – fiction with a dystopian undertone. I guess growing up in the apartheid era, and being raised by an African nanny who I regarded as my mom, left a lasting impression on me.
This is one of my favorite on the border of Science Fiction books. About a lonely boy who spends time on a hill in a tree near a closed mine entrance. One day he drops his apple and it rolls to the closed up entrance and the unexpected happens. I long blue arm reaches for the apple and disappears back in the min.
Toward the end, the boy makes friends with the blue-skinned creature from the mine and discovers an entire community living in the cave. The explanation given on why they are so skinny and blue-skinned intrigued me as to why things are the way they are – that all things have a scientific explanation.
I find it crucially important that we acknowledge that slavery is a global phenomenon that still exists this very day. Dutch historians like me have an obligation to show that the Dutch East India Company, called the world’s first multinational, was a major slave trader and employer of slavery. I am also personally involved in this endeavour as I am one of the leaders of the “Exploring the Slave Trade in Asia” project, an international consortium that brings together knowledge on this subject, and is currently a slave trade in Asia database.
This book became the starting point for many publications on slavery in Southeast Asia. It is a collection of essays that not only provides us with an overview of the entire region over the past 700 years but also suggests how we can study the multifarious forms of slavery and bondage in the region in a comparative manner. Although almost forty years old it is still indispensable reading for any course on slavery in Southeast Asia, including my own course.
Marianne Bohr and her husband, about to turn sixty, are restless for adventure. They decide on an extended, desolate trek across the French island of Corsica — the GR20, Europe’s toughest long-distance footpath — to challenge what it means to grow old. Part travelogue, part buddy story, part memoir, The…
Whatever story I’m telling, I try to write female characters who are smart, funny, kind, and ultimately empowering; characters that drive the narrative, not the other way around. It is really important for me that my female characters have agency – that they actively move the story forward, make decisions and step up. Those are the kind of stories I like to read too. The books on this list are some of my favourites and all contain strong female protagonists. I hope you enjoy.
I have always been fascinated by sharks, so to read the story of Blue Wing, who lives among them, was an absolute joy. Set on an island near Papua New Guinea, this is a heartbreaking story, beautifully and originally told, that explores grief, friendship, forgiveness, and our relationship with nature. I’ve traveled and swam with sharks near where this book is set and it was so special to revisit those places in the book. But it’s Blue Wing’s selflessness, wisdom, and bravery that make this book utterly unforgettable.
WINNER OF THE EDWARD STANFORD CHILDREN'S TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022
A SUNDAY TIMES CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE WEEK
Dive beneath the waves with this spell-binding adventure of friendship, forgiveness and bravery, set on the shores of Papua New Guinea, perfect for fans of Katherine Rundell and Eva Ibbotson.
"I want to be able to call the sharks. Teach me the magic and show me the ways."
Blue Wing is desperate to become a shark caller, but instead she must befriend infuriating newcomer Maple, who arrives unexpectedly on Blue Wing's island.
Throughout the forty-one years (thirty-four of them at Oxford) I spent as a university teacher, I taught a course on Communist government and politics (latterly ‘Communist and post-Communist government’). Communist-ruled systems were never less than highly authoritarian (when they became politically pluralist, they were, by definition, no longer Communist), and in some countries at particular times they were better described as totalitarian. That was notably true of Stalin’s Soviet Union, especially from the early 1930s to the dictator’s death in 1953. The books I’ve written prior to The Human Factor include The Rise and Fall of Communism and The Myth of the Strong Leader: Political Leadership in the Modern Age.
Fascism and Communism purported to explain all social and political phenomena and, on that basis, justified their authoritarian or totalitarian rule. The term ‘fascist’ tends to be loosely applied to intolerant and autocratic political behaviour, but the outstandingly lucid, and highly readable, book by Robert Paxton not only surveys fascism in practice – in Mussolini’s Italy, Hitler’s Germany and in fascist movements and parties in many different countries – it also shows what its distinctive components are. What he calls the ‘mobilizing passions’ of fascism include the glorification of war and violence, expansionism, racism, a fixation on national solidarity, rejection of the legitimacy of diverse interests and values within a society, and, not least, a cult of the heroic leader, with the leader’s instincts counting for more than reasoned, evidence-based argument.
Fascism was the major political invention of the twentieth century and the source of much of its pain. How can we try to comprehend its allure and its horror? Is it a philosophy, a movement, an aesthetic experience? What makes states and nations become fascist?
Acclaimed historian Robert O. Paxton shows that in order to understand fascism we must look at it in action - at what it did, as much as what it said it was about. He explores its falsehoods and common threads; the social and political base that allowed it to prosper; its leaders and internal struggles;…
My interest in demography began when I saw rapid demographic change taking place before my eyes in London, and when I noted the different fertility choices of friends and relations and started to put the pieces together and to understand how demography shapes our changing reality. I have published three books on the subject—the first, a version of my PhD thesis, the second and third captured below—and have broadcast and written articles for the press extensively on these topics.
It takes real historic breadth to write a comprehensive history of the nineteenth century and only a historian of the quality of Evans could pull it off so convincingly. Like his mentor Eric Hobsbawm—but unencumbered by the Marxian straight-jacket—Evans masterfully draws the links not only between decades and between countries and continents but also between the social, the economic, and the political. His book is no demographic history, but it takes demography seriously. This really matters in a century in which the Malthusian bonds were broken for some of humanity, not all of it, making it a period of European global supremacy underpinned by demographic takeoff, the effects of which we are still feeling.
"Sweeping . . . an ambitious synthesis . . . [Evans] writes with admirable narrative power and possesses a wonderful eye for local color . . . Fascinating."-Stephen Schuker, The Wall Street Journal
From the bestselling author of The Third Reich at War, a masterly account of Europe in the age of its global hegemony; the latest volume in the Penguin History of Europe series
Richard J. Evans, bestselling historian of Nazi Germany, returns with a monumental new addition to the acclaimed Penguin History of Europe series, covering the period from the fall…
When two brothers discover a 300-year-old sausage-curing cabin on the side of a Slovenian mountain, it's love at first sight. But 300-year-old cabins come with 300 problems.
Dormice & Moonshine is the true story of an Englishman seduced by Slovenia. In the wake of a breakup, he seeks temporary refuge…
It seems I was destined to write about textiles. Long after I started documenting the tapestries of the Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh—over 45 years ago—I discovered that my great-grandfather was a cotton mule-spinner, working one of those machines that spurred on the industrial revolution. So it’s in my blood. I’ve interviewed dozens of people who’ve made similar discoveries, and have become a firm believer in the long-lasting inherited significance of textiles. We’ve made them and they in turn have made us who we are. Now more than ever, my hope is to entangle people into the wonderful web that connects every era and every culture.
This excellent introduction to the latest archaeological textile studies should convince you that this is the most exciting field for new interdisciplinary approaches to understanding the past. There are 23 essays discussing finds from 16 counties, each telling intelligent but accessible stories about social, chronological, and cultural aspects of ancient societies. Well illustrated and with lots of further reading listed, you’ll end up wanting more.
There is evidence that ever since early prehistory, textiles have always had more than simply a utilitarian function. Textiles express who we are - our gender, age, family affiliation, occupation, religion, ethnicity and social, political, economic and legal status. Besides expressing our identity, textiles protect us from the harsh conditions of the environment, whether as clothes or shelter. We use them at birth for swaddling, in illness as bandages and at death as shrouds. We use them to carry and contain people and things. We use them for subsistence to catch fish and animals and for transport as sails. In…
