#Diana Abu Jaber

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

🌙 Books for Arab American Heritage Month 🌙

🌙 Good morning, bookish bats, and Eid Mubarak to those who are celebrating. Eid al-Fitr ("the feast of breaking the fast") marks the end of Ramadan, an Islamic holy month of fasting and sacrifice. April is also Arab American Heritage month, which celebrates the 3.7 million Arab Americans across the country. This is an opportunity to combat Anti-Arab bigotry by challenging stereotypes and prejudices.

✨ One of the best ways to do so is to read books ABOUT Arab Americans. To help, here are a few books for Arab American Heritage Month you can read, discuss, or add to your ever-growing TBR!

[ List under the cut. ]

✨ Growing up, I didn't have books that represented my experiences as an Arab or Muslim American. My friends didn't have stories to read that could help them understand my perspective. With that in mind, I added children's books on the last slide, for the moms out there searching for diverse books--books that allow us to empathize and understand different perspectives and experiences.

🌙 A Woman Is No Man - Etaf Rum ✨ The Other Americans - Laila Lamami 🌙 You Exist Too Much - Zaina Arafat ✨ Grape Leaves - Gregory Orfalea and Sharif Elmusa 🌙 The Wrong End of the Telescope - Rabih Alameddine ✨ The Beauty of Your Face - Sahar Mustafah 🌙 Martyr - Kaveh Akbar ✨ Between Two Moons - Aisha Abdel Gawad 🌙 Tasting the Sky - Ibtisam Barakat ✨ A Game for Swallows - Zeina Abirached 🌙 Love Is An Ex-Country - Randa Jarrar ✨ The Thirty Names of Night - Zeyn Joukhadar

🌙 I Was Their American Dream - Malaka Gharib ✨ A Country Called Amreeka - Alia Malek 🌙 A Theory of Birds - Zaina Alsous ✨ Against the Loveless World - Susan Abulhawa 🌙 Arab in America - Toufic El Rassi ✨ The Skin and Its Girl - Sarah Cypher 🌙 Sex and Lies - Leïla Slimani ✨ Loom - Thérèse Soukar Chehade 🌙 Birds of Paradise - Diana Abu-Jaber ✨ Come With Me - Noami Shihab Nye 🌙 Girls of Riyadh - Rajāʼ ʻAbd Allāh Ṣāniʻ ✨ How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? - Moustafa Bayoumi

🌙 Evil Eye - Etaf Rum ✨ The Girl Who Fell to Earth - Sophia Al-Maria 🌙 What Strange Paradise - Omar El Akaad ✨ Girls That Never Die - Safia Elhillo 🌙 Bahari - Dina Macki ✨ Life Without a Recipe - Diana Abu-Jaber 🌙 Egyptian Diary - Richard Platt ✨ Man O'War - Cory McCarthy 🌙 The Cave - Amani Ballour, MD ✨ The Map of Salt and Stars - Zeyn Joukhadar 🌙 They Called Me a Lioness - Ahed Tamimi and Dena Takruri ✨ Salt Houses - Hala Alyan

🌙 Arabiyya - Reem Assil ✨ Mornings in Jenin - Susan Abulhawa 🌙 Shubeik Lubeik - Deena Mohamed ✨ The Wrong End of the Telescope - Rabih Alameddine 🌙 Conditional Citizens - Laila Lamami ✨ An Unnecessary Woman - Rabih Alameddine 🌙 It Won't Always Be Like This - Malaka Gharib ✨ Proud - Ibtihaj Muhammad 🌙 The Land in Our Bones - Layla K Feghali ✨ Everything Comes Next - Naomi Shihab Nye 🌙 The Immortals of Tehran - Ali Araghi ✨ Starstruck - Sarafina El-Badry Nance

🌙 Our Women on the Ground - Various ✨ The Jasad Heir - Sara Hashem 🌙 Tell Me How You Really Feel - Aminah Mae Safi ✨ Surge - Etel Adnan 🌙 Here to Stay - Sara Farizan ✨ We Hunt the Flame - Hafsah Faisal 🌙 A Tempest of Tea - Hafsah Faizal ✨ The Bad Muslim Discount - Syed M. Masood 🌙 A Girl Like That - Tanaz Bhathena ✨ Not the Girls You're Looking For - Aminah Mae Safi 🌙 All-American Muslim Girl - Nadine Jolie Courtney ✨ The Moon That Turns You Back - Hala Alyan

🌙 Ms. Marvel - Destined - Saladin Ahmed ✨ Americanized: Rebel Without a Green Card - Sara Saedi 🌙 Internment - Samira Ahmed ✨ Stardust Thief - Chelsea Abdullah 🌙 Once Upon an Eid - Various ✨ Farah Rocks Fifth Grade - Susan Muaddi Darraj 🌙 Barakah Beats - Maleeha Siddiqui ✨ Amira's Picture Day - Reem Faruqi 🌙 The Tale of Princess Fatima, Warrior Woman ✨ Lailah's Lunchbox - Reem Faruqi 🌙 In My Mosque - M.O. Yuksel ✨ Halal Hot Dogs - Susannah Aziz

🌙 The Proudest Blue - Ibtihaj Muhammad ✨ Silverworld - Diana Abu-Jaber 🌙 Other Words for Home - Jasmine Warga ✨ Time to Pray - Maha Addasi 🌙 Under My Hijab - Hena Khan ✨ Wishing Upon the Same Stars - Jacquetta Nammar Feldman 🌙 Amina's Voice - Hena Khan ✨ Yasmin the Recycler - Saadia Faruqi 🌙 The Shape of Thunder - Jasmine Warga ✨ Deep in the Sahara - Kelly Cunnane, Hoda Hadadi 🌙 The Turtle of Michigan - Naomi Shihab Nye ✨ Shad Hadid and the Alchemists of Alexandria - George Jreije

[vatt-world]

hi

Julia Alvarez Tahereh Mafi Diana Abu-Jaber Yasmin Crowther: Jenny Lawson ohn Kennedy Tool Dave Barry: Terry Pratchett Stephen Fry Spike Milligan Bill Bryson Maeve Higgins Christopher Moore Sloane Crosley "I'm Judging You: The Do-Better Manual" by Luvvie Ajayi: "Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations" Jenny Lawson (The Bloggess): Augusten Burroughs: "Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood" P.G. Wodehouse Jonas Jonasson ( Amy Tan My Family and Other Animals" by Gerald Durrell: Born Confused" by Tanuja Desai Hidier "Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation" by Lynne Truss: A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian" by Marina Lewycka: Jhumpa Lahiri: How to Be Black" by Baratunde Thurston Nora Ephron Erich Kästner

"The Tent, The Bucket and Me" by Emma Kennedy: Emma Kennedy's memoir offers a hilarious account of her family's disastrous camping trips in 1970s Britain, filled with mishaps, misadventures, and laugh-out-loud moments.

"Notes from a Small Island" by Bill Bryson: Bill Bryson's memoir recounts his journey through Britain, offering humorous observations on its quirks, customs, and idiosyncrasies as an American expatriate.

"Bridget Jones's Diary" by Helen Fielding: While technically a novel, Bridget Jones's diary-style memoir offers a humorous and relatable look at the life of a single woman in London, navigating relationships, career, and the quest for self-improvement.

"Don't Point That Thing at Me" by Kyril Bonfiglioli: This darkly humorous novel follows the exploits of Charlie Mortdecai, a charmingly roguish art dealer, as he gets embroiled in a series of absurd and comical misadventures.

"A Year in Provence" by Peter Mayle: Peter Mayle's memoir chronicles his experiences living in the South of France, offering humorous anecdotes and charming insights into the joys and challenges of adapting to life in a new culture.

"The Great Railway Bazaar" by Paul Theroux: Paul Theroux's travel memoir offers a humorous and insightful account of his journey by train through Asia, capturing the sights, sounds, and eccentric characters he encounters along the way.

"The Outback House" by Leonie Norrington: This memoir follows Leonie Norrington's family as they leave city life behind to live in the Australian outback, offering humorous and heartwarming tales of their adventures and misadventures in the bush.

"Out of Africa" by Isak Dinesen: Isak Dinesen's memoir offers a lyrical and humorous account of her experiences living on a coffee plantation in colonial Kenya, capturing the beauty, romance, and challenges of life in Africa.

"Foreign Babes in Beijing: Behind the Scenes of a New China" by Rachel DeWoskin: Rachel DeWoskin's memoir offers a humorous and candid look at her experiences as a young American woman living and working in Beijing, navigating cultural differences, romance, and the complexities of modern China.

"Cider with Rosie" by Laurie Lee: Laurie Lee's memoir offers a humorous and nostalgic look at his childhood in a small English village, capturing the innocence, wonder, and mischief of youth in rural Britain. François Rabelais Azar Nafisi: Marjane Satrapi

[its-suanneschafer-author]

ICYMI BOOK REVIEW: #FencingWithTheKing by Diana Abu-Jaber. A lovely insight into Jordanian politics and family intrigue.

[invincible-selfxmade-punk]

"An arrow of truth should dip its point in honey."

--Diana Abu-Jaber

Fencing With The King

[jennamacaroni]

Children of immigrants know it is terribly difficult to try to hang on not only to our own memories but to those of our parents.  What if I don’t make the shish kabob exactly the way my father did?  Am I allowed to tamper with his stuffed grape leaves–especially now that his generation is leaving us?  If I take such risks, will anything be left?  What may be dared and what must be preserved?

Diana Abu-Jaber, “Leaves,” an essay from “Eat Joy: Stories & Comfort Food from 31 Celebrated Writers” edited by Natalie Eve Garrett

[libraryresources]

Always encouraging to hear what people who understand libraries say about the libraries they’ve loved! :’)

[crescentliteraryblog]

Crescent by Diana Abu Jaber

[allwaysfull]

The Language of Baklava | Diana Abu-Jaber

[arnesaknussemm]

Sono sempre stata attratta dalla scrittura. Considero la scrittura uno dei pochi "luoghi" dove posso essere totalmente me stessa con onestà e coraggio. È immensamente liberatoria. Attraverso essa comunico con gli altri e la cosa più affascinante è che scopro molte cose del mio mondo interiore.

Diana Abu-Jaber

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

✨ National Arab American Heritage Month (NAAHM) is celebrated in April. The first Arab American Heritage Day was celebrated on October 25, 1992. NAAHM celebrates the heritage and culture of Arab Americans and Arabic-speaking Americans. It also recognizes the contributions of Arab Americans to the United States, including:

🌙 The history of Arab migration to America 🌙 The diversity within the Arab American community 🌙 Important customs and traditions 🌙 The fight for civil rights and social justice

✨ NAAHM also serves as a time to: 🌙 Combat Anti-Arab bigotry 🌙 Challenge stereotypes and prejudices

✨ In 2023, the president declared April National Arab American Heritage Month. However, I felt it necessary to recognize Arab American Heritage Day this year, too. I'm Palestinian 🇵🇸, but growing up, I never saw that word printed on a page, never saw it recognized as a nationality in novels or newspapers. We're here. We exist. We will not be erased, ignored, or silenced.

✨ In celebration of these voices, here are a few books by Arab and 🇵🇸Palestinian authors to consider adding to your TBR.

🌙 A Woman is No Man by Etaf Rum 🌙 Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa 🌙 The Woman From Tantoura by Radwa Ashour 🌙 You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat 🌙 Crescent by Diana Abu Jaber 🌙 Salt Houses by Hala Alyan 🌙 Minor Detail by Adania Shibli 🌙 As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh 🌙 Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi 🌙 Silence is a Sense by Layla AlAmmar 🌙 The Beauty of Your Face by Sahar Mustafah 🌙 Exhausted on the Cross by Najwan Darwish 🌙 Palestine Is Throwing a Party and the Whole World Is Invited by Kareem Rabie 🌙 My First and Only Love by Sahar Khalifeh 🌙 Rifqa by Mohammed El-Kurd 🌙 Among the Almond Trees by Hussein Barghouthi 🌙 Palestine: A Socialist Introduction (edited) by Sumaya Awad and Brian Bean 🌙 The Book of Ramallah (edited) by Maya Abu Al-Hayat 🌙 Stories Under Occupation: And Other Plays from Palestine (edited) by Samer al-Saber and Gary M. English 🌙 Ever Since I Did Not Die by Ramy al-Asheq 🌙 Power Born of Dreams: My Story is Palestine by Mohammad Sabaaneh 🌙 Post-Millennial Palestine: Literature, Memory, Resistance (edited) by Ahmad Qabaha and Rachel Gregory Fox 🌙 The Dance of the Deep-Blue Scorpion by Akram Musallam 🌙 Wondrous Journeys in Strange Lands by Sonia Nimr 🌙 The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Culinary Journey by Laila El-Haddad and Maggie Schmitt 🌙 Evil Eye by Etaf Rum 🌙 A Child in Palestine by Naji al-Ali 🌙 Murals by Mahmoud Darwish 🌙 Farah Rocks by Susan Muaddi Darraj 🌙 Halal Hot Dogs by Suzannah Aziz, illustrated by Parwinder Singh 🌙 Baba, What Does My Name Mean? A Journey to Palestine by Rifk Ebeid, illustrated by Lamaa Jawhari 🌙 The Olive Tree Said to Me by N. Salem 🌙 Does My Head Look Big In This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah 🌙 Don't Read The Comments by Eric Smith 🌙 Jasmine Falling by Shereen Malherbe 🌙 Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa 🌙 The Lady of Tel Aviv by Raba’i al-Madhoun 🌙 Looking for Palestine: Growing Up Confused in an Arab-American Family by Najla Said

[heavenlyyshecomes]

Mondays are for baklava, which she learned to make by watching her parents. Her mother said that a baklava-maker should have sensitive, supple hands, so she was in charge of opening and unpeeling the paper-thin layers of dough and placing them in a stack in the tray. Her father was in charge of pastry-brushing each layer of dough with a coat of drawn butter. It was systematic yet graceful: her mother carefully unpeeling each layer and placing them in the tray where Sirine’s father painted them. It was important to move quickly so that the unbuttered layers didn’t dry out and start to fall apart. This was one of the ways that Sirine learned how her parents loved each other—their concerted movements like a dance; they swam together through the round arcs of her mother’s arms and her father’s tender strokes.

— DINA ABU-JABER, Crescent

[lioninsunheart]

The Apricots are Allllllllll-Most Ready to Pick. (Curator)

“She removes the pint of apricots, plump and exquisite as roses, and offers him one. He takes a bite and puts his hand over hers as she takes a bite, the velvety peel and fruit sugar filling her whole mouth. The air between them is complicated, infused with the scents from the bags: toasted sesame, sweet orange blossom water, and fragrant rosewater.” 

― Diana Abu-Jaber, Crescent

[its-suanneschafer-author]

BOOK REVIEW: #FencingWithTheKing by Diana Abu-Jaber. A lovely insight into Jordanian politics and family intrigue.

https://suanneschaferauthor.com/book-review-fencing-with-the-king/

[invincible-selfxmade-punk]

Could you list top 100 books? I'm trying to get into reading.

My top 100 Books!! I’m glad you didn’t ask this on a work day  b/c holy hell this was a bit of work!  However, it was fun to go back and revisit some of my favorites. Sorry, not everything was capitalized, I did this all voice to text b/c it was a lot of writing.I wish I could wake up to asks like these every day. This really isn’t going to be in any particular order but I will try to put my favorites in the top 20

The Stand by Stephen King

See No Evil, Hear No Evil by Robert Heinlen

The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald

Zelda by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Hairstyles of the Damned by Joe Meno

A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe

The Spy Who Came In from the Cold by John le Carre 

Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote

Liar’s Club by Debra Karr

Life of Pi johnny martel

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion 

Doctor Sleep by Stephen King 

A Thousand Secret Senses by Amy Tan

Arabic Jazz by Diana Abu-Jaber

God Bless John Wayne by Kinky Friedman

A Thief of Time by Tony Hillerman

Lone Star Killing Time by Kinky Friedman

Steppenwolfe by Herman Hesse

Rock Critic Murders by Jesse Sublette

Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel

Now More Again by Elizabeth Wurtzel

a thousand little pieces by James Frey 

Bright, Shining Morning by James Frey

origin by Diana Abu-Jaber 

I wear the black hat by Chuck Klosterman 

lone star legend by Gwendolyn Zepeda 

anasazi boys by Neil Gaiman 

good omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett 

a delicate truth by John le Carre 

This side of paradise by f Scott Fitzgerald 

back to blood by Tom Wolfe

The Friedkin connection a memoir by William Friedkin 

a thousand splendid suns by Khaled Hosseini 

the return of the thin man by Dashiell Hammett 

The fifth assassin by Brad Metzler 

casual vacancy by jk rowling 

the Dexter series by Jeff Lindsay 

sex drugs and cocoa puffs by Klosterman

sharp objects by Gillian Flynn

gone girl by Gillian Flynn 

saving fish from drowning Amy Tan 

feed by Mira grant

tinker tailor soldier spy by John le Carre 

Tender is the Night by Hemingway

now watch him die by henry Rollins 

Devil in the white city by Erik Larson 

It by Stephen King 

get in the van by Henry Rollins 

white night by Jim Butcher 

solipsist by henry Rollins

a stained white radiance by James lee burke 

I Alex Ross by James Patterson ross

Elvis, Jesus and Coca Cola by Kinky Friedman

The hunger games trilogy by Suzanne Collins 

true believers by Kurt Andersen 

into the wild by Jon 

cadillac jukebox by James lee Burke

in cold blood by Truman Capote 

catch-22 by joseph heller 

london bridges by James Patterson 

one from none Henry Rollins

freedom by Jonathan Franzen 

This Side of Paradise by Hemingway

pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk 

Lullabye by Chuck Palahniuk

the man who owns the news: the inside secret world of Rupert Murdoch by Michael Wolff 

fear and loathing in las vegas by hunter s Thompson 

alien ink: the FBI’s secret war on freedom of expression by Natalie Robbins

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Postcards from The Edge by Carrie Fisher 

loose jam by Wayne Wilson 

Hell by Chuck Pahlaniuk

celebrity by Thomas Thompson 

Primary colors by anonymous 

sin city by frank miller

fatal vision by Joe McGinniss

summer knight by Jim Butcher

proven guilty by Jim Butcher 

sweet Jesus, I hate rush Limbaugh by Joseph Milton

the Icarus Agenda by Robert Ludlum 

the road to Omaha by Robert Ludlum 

Bushwacked: life  In George w Bush’s America by Molly Ivins 

the house on mango street by Sandra Cisneros

grim reaper the end of days by Steve allton 

preacher by Garth Ennis 

sandman by Neil Gaiman

the book of fate by Brad Meltzer 

a morning for Flamingos by James Lee Burke 

heaven’s prisoners by James Lee Burke

love is a dog from hell by Charles Bukowski 

purple cane road James Lee Burke 

Crescent by Diana Abu Jaber 

in the electric mist with the Confederate dead by James lee Burke 

the Adrian Mole Diaries by Sue Townsend

V For Vendetta by Alan Moore

Watchmen by Alan Moore

Never The Same Again by Jesse Sublett

I Want My MTV

Soul Circus by George Pelecanos

[ghostalservice]

tagged by @an-sceal, THANK YOU I LOVE TALKING ABOUT MYSELF

last song: according to my phone it’s Lifestyles of the Rich and the Famous by Good Charlotte, which still slaps honestly

last movie: Pride (2014) because i was feeling SUPER QUEER and SUPER SOCIALIST

currently reading: in the middle of a bunch at the moment: Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid (kindle, like my fifth read, the perfect romance) Silverworld by Diana Abu-Jaber (paper, reading to see if it’s too scary for my kid) I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti (paper, what i read on my breaks at work) The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger by Marc Levinson (kindle, this is slow going but SUPER interesting) Victories Greater than Death by Charlie Jane Anders (kindle - this is good but hasn’t hooked me yet)

currently watching: we’re rewatching Monty Python’s Flying Circus to see how it holds up in 2021, and most of it holds up shockingly well thus far! Also rewatching Derry Girls and Queer Eye (for RESEARCH)

currently craving: the tabouli that’s in my fridge omg, how early in the day is too early to eat lunch!!!!! Also the ginger cookies my brother makes, because they’re the best thing and I want them but I’m never going to make them myself

tagging anybody who wants to do this, and also @demonbloodsausagedog because what is marriage for if not to tag your spouse in tumblr memes