{"title":"Rabih Alameddine","description":"\u003cp\u003eExplore the poignant and darkly funny novels of Rabih Alameddine, a master of contemporary Lebanese literature. His stories delve into identity, war, and resilience, perfect for readers seeking profound, character-driven narratives.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"koolaids-book-rabih-alameddine-9780349110608","title":"Koolaids","description":"Fleeing the war in Beirut, Mohammed finds his fortune in America and meets Samir, born in America but raised in the Lebanon, who has returned to the US to study. One is Muslim, the other Christian, but both are gay and experience similar transitions in the search for love, self and \"home\".","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49508901486865,"sku":"GOR001414229","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49606086951185,"sku":"GOR001954636","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50555152531729,"sku":"GOR008243333","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0349110603.jpg?v=1751433455"},{"product_id":"wrong-end-of-the-telescope-book-rabih-alameddine-9781472156129","title":"The Wrong End of the Telescope","description":"Le pont Gustave-Flaubert ne ressemble-t-il pas   un gigantesque instrument de musique? N'est-ce pas le lieu id al pour cr er un op ra dont le livret serait sign  Flaubert? Quel est ce myst re qui plane sur l'Armada 2017   Rouen?   travers cette aventure du d tective priv  Jules Kostelos, vous visiterez Rouen, Flaubert et les r ves baroques de Charles Hockolmess le chat. Vous rencontrerez aussi Giovanni Bottesini virtuose de la contrebasse.. Vous serez peut- tre surpris d'apprendre que la Tr s Grande M diath que de l'Ouest est dirig e par Salammb , biblioth caire et danseuse. Cette  dition au format poche est publi e   l'occasion du bicentenaire de Gustave Flaubert (2021).","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49510491455761,"sku":"GOR012996859","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49740457410833,"sku":"NGR9781472156129","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50414062797073,"sku":"CIN1472156129VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51898481213713,"sku":"GOR014453131","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52939624120593,"sku":"GOR014661328","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1472156129.jpg?v=1767349671"},{"product_id":"unnecessary-woman-book-rabih-alameddine-9781472119155","title":"An Unnecessary Woman","description":"Aaliya Saleh lives alone in her Beirut apartment, surrounded by stockpiles of books. Godless, fatherless, childless, and divorced, Aaliya is her family’s 'unnecessary appendage'. Every year, she translates a new favourite book into Arabic, then stows it away. The thirty-seven books that Aaliya has translated over her lifetime have never been read - by anyone.  This breathtaking portrait of a reclusive woman follows Aaliya’s digressive mind as it ricochets across visions of past and present Beirut. Colourful musings on literature, philosophy, and art are invaded by memories of the Lebanese Civil War and Aaliya’s own volatile past. As she tries to overcome her ageing body and spontaneous emotional upwellings, Aaliya is faced with an unthinkable disaster that threatens to shatter the little life she has left.  A love letter to literature and its power to define who we are, the prodigiously gifted Rabih Alameddine has given us a magnificent rendering of one woman's life in the Middle East.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49516419285265,"sku":"GOR006476130","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50205190455569,"sku":"GOR008974298","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52961969504529,"sku":"GOR014670350","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1472119150.jpg?v=1750827422"},{"product_id":"i-the-divine-book-rabih-alameddine-9780753816967","title":"I, the Divine","description":"Named by her grandfather after 'the Divine' Sarah Bernhardt, Sarah Nour El-Din grows up in Beirut against the tense background of civil war. But the young Sarah finds pleasure in the everyday - her first cigarette, first kiss, seeking revenge on her tight-lipped stepmother. Then, with adulthood, comes an awareness of the fragility of life. After two failed marriages, the loss of her son, the death of one sister and the imprisonment of another, Sarah begins to tell her story. But this story is not so easy to tell...A novel written entirely in first chapters, I, THE DIVINE is an honest and touching story of one woman's struggle to come to terms with her past.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49528050090257,"sku":"GOR002507079","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49539814883601,"sku":"GOR007135075","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53046660661521,"sku":"GOR002708089","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0753816962.jpg?v=1751394823"},{"product_id":"i-the-divine-book-rabih-alameddine-9781472154798","title":"I, The Divine","description":"'In this delightful novel, Alameddine takes his greatest risks yet, and succeeds brilliantly, in a work that while marked by radical formal innovation, manages to be warm, sad, funny and moving' Michael Chabon  Named by her grandfather after 'the Divine' Sarah Bernhardt, Sarah Nour El-Din grows up in Beirut against the tense background of civil war. But the young Sarah finds pleasure in the everyday - her first cigarette, first kiss, seeking revenge on her tight-lipped stepmother. Then, with adulthood, comes an awareness of the fragility of life. After two failed marriages, the loss of her son, the death of one sister and the imprisonment of another, Sarah begins to tell her story. But this story is not so easy to tell.  A novel written entirely in first chapters, I, THE DIVINE is an honest and touching story of one woman's struggle to come to terms with her past.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49543706640657,"sku":"GOR010144882","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49734151504145,"sku":"NGR9781472154798","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50919969784081,"sku":"GOR011059724","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52436237811985,"sku":"CIN1472154797VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52798169809169,"sku":"GOR011783718","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1472154797.jpg?v=1772792168"},{"product_id":"angel-of-history-book-rabih-alameddine-9781472152381","title":"The Angel of History","description":"'Here is a book, full of story, unrepentantly political at every level. At a time when many western writers seem to be in retreat from saying anything that could be construed as political, Alameddine says it all, shamelessly, gloriously and, realised like his Satan, in the most stylish of forms' the Guardian  Set over the course of one night in the waiting room of a psych clinic, The Angel of History follows Yemeni-born poet Jacob as he revisits the events of his life, from his maternal upbringing in an Egyptian whorehouse to his adolescence under the aegis of his wealthy father and his life as a gay Arab man in San Francisco at the height of AIDS. Hovered over by the presence of alluring, sassy Satan who taunts Jacob to remember his painful past and dour, frigid Death who urges him to forget and give up on life, Jacob is also attended to by 14 saints. Set in Cairo and Beirut; Sana'a, Stockholm, and San Francisco; Alameddine gives us a charged philosophical portrait of a brilliant mind in crisis. This is a profound, philosophical and hilariously winning story of the war between memory and oblivion we wrestle with every day of our lives.  'A profoundly beautiful novel that infolds the political with the personal in unexpected and new ways . . . An extraordinary book' Neel Mukherjee, New Statesman, 'Books of the Year 2016'  'His stories take the reader into the labyrinth that is the mind . . . The Angel of History is digressive and daring' the Economist  'Alameddine has created a scintillating, original work whose moral complexity and detail of observation are wholly contemporary and entirely his own' Spectator","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49546917576977,"sku":"GOR008900621","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49611314790673,"sku":"GOR008758923","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49732497015057,"sku":"NGR9781472152381","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50385379328273,"sku":"CIN1472152387G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52108752617745,"sku":"GOR008719120","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1472152387.jpg?v=1772792023"},{"product_id":"unnecessary-woman-book-rabih-alameddine-9781472119209","title":"An Unnecessary Woman","description":"Aaliya Saleh lives alone in her Beirut apartment, surrounded by stockpiles of books. Godless, fatherless, childless, and divorced, Aaliya is her family’s 'unnecessary appendage'. Every year, she translates a new favourite book into Arabic, then stows it away. The thirty-seven books that Aaliya has translated over her lifetime have never been read - by anyone.  This breathtaking portrait of a reclusive woman follows Aaliya’s digressive mind as it ricochets across visions of past and present Beirut. Colourful musings on literature, philosophy, and art are invaded by memories of the Lebanese Civil War and Aaliya’s own volatile past. As she tries to overcome her ageing body and spontaneous emotional upwellings, Aaliya is faced with an unthinkable disaster that threatens to shatter the little life she has left.  A love letter to literature and its power to define who we are, the prodigiously gifted Rabih Alameddine has given us a magnificent rendering of one woman's life in the Middle East.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49550486012177,"sku":"GOR006966017","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50097520541969,"sku":"CIN1472119207A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50109247488273,"sku":"GOR007193188","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50483365970193,"sku":"GOR008968659","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50649119654161,"sku":"CIN1472119207G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51342222459153,"sku":"GOR008094615","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":53492759265553,"sku":"NGR9781472119209","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1472119207.jpg?v=1772794687"},{"product_id":"unnecessary-woman-book-rabih-alameddine-9780802122148","title":"An Unnecessary Woman","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eNATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA happily misanthropic Middle East divorcee finds refuge in books in a \"beautiful and absorbing\" novel of late-life crisis (\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAaliya is a divorced, childless, and reclusively cranky translator in Beirut nurturing doubts about her latest project: a 900-page avant-garde, linguistically serpentine historiography by a late Chilean existentialist. Honestly, at seventy-two, should she be taking on such a project? Not that Aailiya fears dying. Women in her family live long; her mother is still going crazy. But on this lonely day, hour-by-hour, Aaliya's musings on literature, philosophy, her career, and her aging body, are suddenly invaded by memories of her volatile past. As she tries in vain to ward off these emotional upwellings, Aaliya is faced with an unthinkable disaster that threatens to shatter the little life she has left.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn this \"meditation on, among other things, aging, politics, literature, loneliness, grief and resilience\" (\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e), Alameddine conjures \"a beguiling narrator . . . who is, like her city, hard to read, hard to take, hard to know and, ultimately, passionately complex\" (\u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e). A finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the National Book Award, \u003ci\u003eAn Unnecessary Woman\u003c\/i\u003e is \"a fun, and often funny . . . grave, powerful . . . [and] extraordinary\" (\u003ci\u003eWashington Independent Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e) ode to literature and its power to define who we are.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Read it once, read it twice, read other books for a decade or so, and then pick it up and read it anew. This one's a keeper\" (\u003ci\u003eThe Independent\u003c\/i\u003e)\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49554675532049,"sku":"GOR005949973","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49856003309841,"sku":"GOR008675658","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50367208751377,"sku":"CIN0802122140A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50832277078289,"sku":"CIN0802122140VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52105209807121,"sku":"CIN0802122140G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0802122140.jpg?v=1751361848"},{"product_id":"hakawati-book-rabih-alameddine-9781472154804","title":"The Hakawati","description":"'Stunning' New York Times Book Review  'Here it comes, the book of the year, on its own magic carpet. No book this bewitching has ever felt so important; no book this important has ever been so lovingly enchanted. The Hakawati is both a snapshot of our current crisis, and a story for the ages. What else can we ask the djinn of literature for?' Andrew Sean Greer, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Less  In 2003, Osama al-Kharrat returns to Beirut after many years in America to stand vigil at his father's deathbed. As the family gathers, stories begin to unfold: Osama's grandfather was a hakawati, or storyteller, and his bewitching tales are interwoven with classic stories of the Middle East. Here are Abraham and Isaac; Ishmael, father of the Arab tribes; the beautiful Fatima; Baybars, the slave prince who vanquished the Crusaders; and a host of mischievous imps. Through Osama, we also enter the world of the contemporary Lebanese men and women whose stories tell a larger, heartbreaking tale of seemingly endless war, conflicted identity, and survival. With The Hakawati, Rabih Alameddine has given us an Arabian Nights for this century.  'Sharp, seductive storytelling' O, The Oprah Magazine","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49582220738833,"sku":"GOR010143636","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49642958029073,"sku":"GOR012185213","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49732260233489,"sku":"NGR9781472154804","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1472154800.jpg?v=1767352316"},{"product_id":"hakawati-book-rabih-alameddine-9780330452212","title":"The Hakawati","description":"Irreverent, exhilarating, heartbreaking, and enchanting us from the very first line - 'Listen. Let me take you on a journey beyond imagining. Let me tell you a story' - this extraordinary book is an Arabian Nights for our time.   Osama al-Kharrat left Lebanon at sixteen to escape the civil war. He returns after some years, much changed, to find his father bedridden and his family, friends and enemies in attendance, reminiscing, gossiping, making peace, and above all telling stories. 'Hakawati' means 'storyteller', and Osama's grandfather was one of the best. From Uncle Jihad to the family doctor `Tin Can’, each member of Osama's circle is joined in a vigil that crosses continents, spans centuries, celebrates love, recounts war, and creates an epic picture of the region: one that is at once mythic, mischievous, and painfully real.   'A glorious, gorgeous masterpiece of pure storytelling' Amy Tan   `The Hakawati is astonishing. There is a delightful cheekiness in telling so many tales all at the same time. It is pure genius’ Aleksandar Hemon   'Here it comes, the book of the year, on its own magic carpet of endless stories. Both a snapshot of our current crisis, and a story for the ages' Andrew Sean Greer","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49585880072465,"sku":"GOR001471169","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50896442720529,"sku":"GOR002227361","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0330452215.jpg?v=1751196595"},{"product_id":"storyteller-book-rabih-alameddine-9780330454476","title":"The Storyteller","description":"Listen. Let me take you on a journey beyond imagining. Let me tell you a story . . .   The al-Kharrats are a lovable, irrepressible family going through a difficult time. Osama has returned to Beirut after a long absence to be with his ailing father and join the vigil around his bedside, and since storytelling runs in the family’s veins – his grandfather was a legendary hakawati – this is no peaceful, reverential scene. It is one of gossip and imagination, of tales remembered and tales invented, of love affairs and civil war, of myths and feisty heroines and warriors and music and not a little magic.   Crossing continents, spanning centuries, full of adventure, mischief and surprise, this glorious novel is a twenty-first-century Arabian Nights. Prepare to be enchanted.   `A wonder of a book. A work – and a world – that expands our narrow vision, transforming it to one of multiplicity, enchanting it with hope’ New York Times   `Here it comes, the book of the year, on its own magic carpet of stories. No book this bewitching has ever felt so important’ Andrew Sean Greer   `A glorious, gorgeous masterpiece of pure storytelling’ Amy Tan   `Dazzling’ Financial Times","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49607829455121,"sku":"GOR001459838","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50348609700113,"sku":"CIN0330454471G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51346974900497,"sku":"GOR002963584","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53481683616017,"sku":"CIN0330454471VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0330454471.jpg?v=1751422747"},{"product_id":"i-the-divine-book-rabih-alameddine-9780393323566","title":"I, The Divine","description":"\"Alameddine's new novel unfolds like a secret... creating a tale...humorous and heartbreaking and always real\" (Los Angeles Times). \"[W]ith each new approach, [Sarah] sheds another layer of her pretension, revealing another truth about her humanity\" (San Francisco Weekly). Raised in a hybrid family shaped by divorce and remarriage, and by Beirut in wartime, Sarah finds a fragile peace in self-imposed exile in the United States. Her extraordinary dignity is supported by a best friend, a grown-up son, occasional sensual pleasures, and her determination to tell her own story. \"Like her narrative, [Sarah's] life is broken and fragmented. [But] the bright, strange, often startling pieces...are moving and memorable\" (Boston Globe). Reading group guide included.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49617039524113,"sku":"CIN0393323560G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49662470521105,"sku":"GOR010020726","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":49789962354961,"sku":"CIN0393323560A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50313321120017,"sku":"CIN0393323560VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50636518555921,"sku":"GOR006144025","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51002055524625,"sku":"NIN9780393323566","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52401384587537,"sku":"NLS9780393323566","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0393323560.jpg?v=1750739967"},{"product_id":"unnecessary-woman-book-rabih-alameddine-9780802122940","title":"An Unnecessary Woman","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eNATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA happily misanthropic Middle East divorcee finds refuge in books in a \"beautiful and absorbing\" novel of late-life crisis (\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAaliya is a divorced, childless, and reclusively cranky translator in Beirut nurturing doubts about her latest project: a 900-page avant-garde, linguistically serpentine historiography by a late Chilean existentialist. Honestly, at seventy-two, should she be taking on such a project? Not that Aailiya fears dying. Women in her family live long; her mother is still going crazy. But on this lonely day, hour-by-hour, Aaliya's musings on literature, philosophy, her career, and her aging body, are suddenly invaded by memories of her volatile past. As she tries in vain to ward off these emotional upwellings, Aaliya is faced with an unthinkable disaster that threatens to shatter the little life she has left.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn this \"meditation on, among other things, aging, politics, literature, loneliness, grief and resilience\" (\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e), Alameddine conjures \"a beguiling narrator . . . who is, like her city, hard to read, hard to take, hard to know and, ultimately, passionately complex\" (\u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e). A finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the National Book Award, \u003ci\u003eAn Unnecessary Woman\u003c\/i\u003e is \"a fun, and often funny . . . grave, powerful . . . [and] extraordinary\" (\u003ci\u003eWashington Independent Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e) ode to literature and its power to define who we are.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Read it once, read it twice, read other books for a decade or so, and then pick it up and read it anew. This one's a keeper\" (\u003ci\u003eThe Independent\u003c\/i\u003e)\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49631986811153,"sku":"GOR006580780","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49676887097617,"sku":"CIN0802122949G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50037743714577,"sku":"CIN0802122949VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50361102270737,"sku":"CIN0802122949A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50751302664465,"sku":"GOR007296032","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51007267569937,"sku":"NIN9780802122940","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51582271062289,"sku":"GOR013356937","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0802122949.jpg?v=1751043285"},{"product_id":"wrong-end-of-the-telescope-book-rabih-alameddine-9781472156112","title":"The Wrong End of the Telescope","description":"WINNER OF THE PEN\/FAULKNER AWARD FOR FICTION  'A beautiful, well paced, enraging, funny and heartbreaking book' the Guardian  'Favorite novel of the year? Tough choice for me, but maybe The Wrong End of the Telescope, which was devastating and wondrous. Nobody writes like Rabih. Nobody gets anywhere close' John Green (#1 bestselling author) via Twitter  'Spectacular . . . Alameddine's irreverent prose evokes the old master storytellers from my own Middle Eastern home . . . deeply poignant' New York Times  Mina Simpson, a Lebanese doctor, arrives at the infamous Moria refugee camp on Lesbos, Greece, after being urgently summoned for help by her friend who runs an NGO there. Alienated from her family except for her beloved brother, Mina has avoided being so close to her homeland for decades. But with a week off work and apart from her wife of thirty years, Mina hopes to accomplish something meaningful, among the abundance of Western volunteers who pose for selfies with beached dinghies and the camp's children. Soon, a boat crosses bringing Sumaiya, a fiercely resolute Syrian matriarch with terminal liver cancer. Determined to protect her children and husband at all costs, Sumaiya refuses to alert her family to her diagnosis. Bonded together by Sumaiya's secret, a deep connection sparks between the two women, and as Mina prepares a course of treatment with the limited resources on hand, she confronts the circumstances of the migrants' displacement, as well as her own constraints in helping them.  Not since the inimitable Aaliya of An Unnecessary Woman has Rabih Alameddine conjured such a winsome heroine to lead us to one of the most wrenching conflicts of our time. Cunningly weaving in stories of other refugees into Mina's singular own, The Wrong End of the Telescope is a bedazzling tapestry of both tragic and amusing portraits of indomitable spirits facing this humanitarian crisis.  'Alameddine hits a distinctly contemporary note with this new book about refugees . . . it feels totally authentic' Sunday Times","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49634033467665,"sku":"GOR011608785","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49660931178769,"sku":"GOR012312085","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49740438274321,"sku":"NGR9781472156112","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50376731296017,"sku":"CIN1472156110G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1472156110.jpg?v=1765448185"},{"product_id":"wrong-end-of-the-telescope-book-rabih-alameddine-9780802157805","title":"The Wrong End of the Telescope","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWINNER OF THE 2022 PEN\/FAULKNER AWARD FOR FICTION\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eBy National Book Award winner for \u003ci\u003eThe True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)\u003c\/i\u003e and National Book Award finalist for An Unnecessary Woman comes a transporting new novel about an Arab American trans woman's journey among Syrian refugees on Lesbos island.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eMina Simpson, a Lebanese doctor, arrives at the infamous Moria refugee camp on Lesbos, Greece, after being urgently summoned for help by her friend who runs an NGO there. Alienated from her family except for her beloved brother, Mina has avoided being so close to her homeland for decades. But with a week off work and apart from her wife of thirty years, Mina hopes to accomplish something meaningful, among the abundance of Western volunteers who pose for selfies with beached dinghies and the camp's children. Soon, a boat crosses bringing Sumaiya, a fiercely resolute Syrian matriarch with terminal liver cancer. Determined to protect her children and husband at all costs, Sumaiya refuses to alert her family to her diagnosis. Bonded together by Sumaiya's secret, a deep connection sparks between the two women, and as Mina prepares a course of treatment with the limited resources on hand, she confronts the circumstances of the migrants' displacement, as well as her own constraints in helping them.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eNot since the inimitable Aaliya of An Unnecessary Woman has Rabih Alameddine conjured such a winsome heroine to lead us to one of the most wrenching conflicts of our time. Cunningly weaving in stories of other refugees into Mina's singular own, The Wrong End of the Telescope is a bedazzling tapestry of both tragic and amusing portraits of indomitable spirits facing a humanitarian crisis.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49678129299729,"sku":"CIN0802157807G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49952942555409,"sku":"CIN0802157807VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50011616215313,"sku":"GOR013836456","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51007475056913,"sku":"NIN9780802157805","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ LIKE_NEW \/ SBYB","offer_id":53007724347665,"sku":"CIN0802157807LN","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0802157807.jpg?v=1751138310"},{"product_id":"koolaids-book-rabih-alameddine-9780802124142","title":"Koolaids","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"Daring, dazzling . . . a tough, funny, heart-breaking book.\" --Seattle Times\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"[A] refreshing statement of honesty and endurance ...funny, brave full of heart and willing to say things about war and disease, sexual and cultural politics that have rarely been said so boldly or directly before.\" --The Sunday Oregonian\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWhen National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle finalist Rabih Alameddine's dazzling literary debut Koolaids first published it garnered exuberant praise from Amy Tan, Rick Wallach, and Sarah Schulman, among others. Detailing the impact of the AIDS epidemic and the Lebanese civil war in Beirut on a circle of friends and family during the eighties and nineties, Koolaids mines the chaos of contemporary experience, telling the stories of characters who can no longer love or think except in fragments. Clips, quips, vignettes and hallucinations, tragic news reports and hilarious short plays, conversations with both the quick and the dead, all shine their combined lights to reveal the way we experience life today in this ambitious debut from bestselling and acclaimed author Rabih Alameddine.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Rabih Alameddine is one rare writer who not only breaks our hearts but gives every broken piece a new life.\" --Yiyun Li\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Rabih Alameddine is one our most daring writers--daring not in the cheap sense of lurid or racy, but as a surgeon, a philosopher, an explorer, or a dancer.\" --Michael Chabon\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49790900699409,"sku":"CIN0802124143G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51007282774289,"sku":"NIN9780802124142","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52105233170705,"sku":"CIN0802124143VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0802124143.jpg?v=1751361851"},{"product_id":"koolaids-book-rabih-alameddine-9780312206581","title":"Koolaids","description":"\u003cb\u003eDaring, dazzling . . . a tough, funny, heart-breaking book.--\u003ci\u003eSeattle Times\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e A] refreshing statement of honesty and endurance .funny, brave full of heart and willing to say things about war and disease, sexual and cultural politics that have rarely been said so boldly or directly before.--\u003ci\u003eThe Sunday Oregonian\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWhen National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle finalist Rabih Alameddine's dazzling literary debut \u003ci\u003eKoolaids\u003c\/i\u003e first published it garnered exuberant praise from Amy Tan, Rick Wallach, and Sarah Schulman, among others. Detailing the impact of the AIDS epidemic and the Lebanese civil war in Beirut on a circle of friends and family during the eighties and nineties, \u003ci\u003eKoolaids\u003c\/i\u003e mines the chaos of contemporary experience, telling the stories of characters who can no longer love or think except in fragments. Clips, quips, vignettes and hallucinations, tragic news reports and hilarious short plays, conversations with both the quick and the dead, all shine their combined lights to reveal the way we experience life today in this ambitious debut from bestselling and acclaimed author Rabih Alameddine. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eRabih Alameddine is one rare writer who not only breaks our hearts but gives every broken piece a new life.--Yiyun Li \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eRabih Alameddine is one our most daring writers--daring not in the cheap sense of lurid or racy, but as a surgeon, a philosopher, an explorer, or a dancer.--Michael Chabon \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49900420104465,"sku":"CIN0312206585G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0312206585.jpg?v=1750974437"},{"product_id":"koolaids-book-rabih-alameddine-9780349110615","title":"Koolaids","description":"A dazzling literary debut, KOOLAIDS shatters the dimension of time and mimes the chaos of contemporary existence as it details the impact of the AIDS epidemic and the Lebanese civil war on a circle of family and friends.  In clips, quips, memories and hallucinations, tragic news reports and hilarious short plays, diary entries and conversations, KOOLAIDS tells the stories of a group of individuals who can no longer love or think except in fragments of time.  Their dances with death - in wartorn Beirut, with the scourge of AIDS - form a raging affirmation of life.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49903047049489,"sku":"GOR001830335","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50204578906385,"sku":"GOR003502449","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51232954745105,"sku":"NIN9780349110615","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52427871158545,"sku":"NLS9780349110615","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0349110611.jpg?v=1767350813"},{"product_id":"hakawati-book-rabih-alameddine-9780307266798","title":"The Hakawati","description":"In 2003, Osama al-Kharrat returns to Beirut after many years in America to stand vigil at his father's deathbed. As the family gathers, stories begin to unfold: Osama's grandfather was a \u003ci\u003ehakawati\u003c\/i\u003e, or storyteller, and his bewitching tales are interwoven with classic stories of the Middle East. Here are Abraham and Isaac; Ishmael, father of the Arab tribes; the beautiful Fatima; Baybars, the slave prince who vanquished the Crusaders; and a host of mischievous imps. Through Osama, we also enter the world of the contemporary Lebanese men and women whose stories tell a larger, heartbreaking tale of seemingly endless war, conflicted identity, and survival. With \u003cb\u003eThe Hakawati\u003c\/b\u003e, Rabih Alameddine has given us an \u003ci\u003eArabian Nights\u003c\/i\u003e for this century.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49926379110673,"sku":"CIN0307266796G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50426884227345,"sku":"CIN0307266796VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":53209944359185,"sku":"CIN0307266796A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0307266796.jpg?v=1751356750"},{"product_id":"wrong-end-of-the-telescope-book-rabih-alameddine-9780802157812","title":"The Wrong End of the Telescope","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWINNER OF THE 2022 PEN\/FAULKNER AWARD FOR FICTION\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eBy National Book Award winner for \u003ci\u003eThe True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)\u003c\/i\u003e and National Book Award finalist for An Unnecessary Woman comes a transporting new novel about an Arab American trans woman's journey among Syrian refugees on Lesbos island.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eMina Simpson, a Lebanese doctor, arrives at the infamous Moria refugee camp on Lesbos, Greece, after being urgently summoned for help by her friend who runs an NGO there. Alienated from her family except for her beloved brother, Mina has avoided being so close to her homeland for decades. But with a week off work and apart from her wife of thirty years, Mina hopes to accomplish something meaningful, among the abundance of Western volunteers who pose for selfies with beached dinghies and the camp's children. Soon, a boat crosses bringing Sumaiya, a fiercely resolute Syrian matriarch with terminal liver cancer. Determined to protect her children and husband at all costs, Sumaiya refuses to alert her family to her diagnosis. Bonded together by Sumaiya's secret, a deep connection sparks between the two women, and as Mina prepares a course of treatment with the limited resources on hand, she confronts the circumstances of the migrants' displacement, as well as her own constraints in helping them.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eNot since the inimitable Aaliya of An Unnecessary Woman has Rabih Alameddine conjured such a winsome heroine to lead us to one of the most wrenching conflicts of our time. Cunningly weaving in stories of other refugees into Mina's singular own, The Wrong End of the Telescope is a bedazzling tapestry of both tragic and amusing portraits of indomitable spirits facing a humanitarian crisis.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50005385740561,"sku":"CIN0802157815VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50366214045969,"sku":"CIN0802157815A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51007394349329,"sku":"NIN9780802157812","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52105690775825,"sku":"CIN0802157815G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0802157815.jpg?v=1750979139"},{"product_id":"angel-of-history-book-rabih-alameddine-9780802127198","title":"The Angel of History","description":"A gay poet is haunted by war and the AIDs crisis in this \"sprawling fever dream of a novel\" by the National Book Award-winning author of The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) (NPR.org).  Set over the course of one night in the waiting room of a psych clinic, The Angel of History follows Yemeni-born poet Jacob as he revisits the events of his life. His memories take him from his maternal upbringing in an Egyptian whorehouse to his adolescence under the aegis of his wealthy father and his life as a gay Arab man in San Francisco at the height of AIDS.  Haunted by an alluring, sassy Satan, who taunts Jacob to remember his painful past, and by dour, frigid Death, who urges him to forget and give up on life, Jacob is also attended to by fourteen saints. With Jacob recalling his life in Cairo, Beirut, Sana'a, Stockholm, and San Francisco, Alameddine gives us a charged philosophical portrayal of a brilliant mind in crisis. This is a profound story that \"marks the triumph of memory over oblivion\" (Bookforum).","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50108276343057,"sku":"CIN0802127193G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50145826210065,"sku":"CIN0802127193VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51007353061649,"sku":"NIN9780802127198","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52543095013649,"sku":"NLS9780802127198","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0802127193.jpg?v=1751043295"},{"product_id":"i-the-divine-book-rabih-alameddine-9780393042092","title":"I, the Divine","description":"The most unforgettable character who has ever triedagain and againto tell her story. Named by her grandfather after the \"divine\" Sarah Bernhardt, the Lebanese-American artist Sarah Nour El-Din tells her story. She begins a memoir, a noveland abandons every attempt in the course of the first chapter. What emerges from these fictional fragments is extraordinarya woman, and a life, perhaps more real than any we have known in literature. Raised in a hybrid family shaped by divorce and remarriage, and by Beirut in wartime, Sarah finds a fragile peace in self-imposed exile in the United States. Her vibrant character has survived rape, her mother's suicide, her sister's madness, and the impossibility of escaping her family. Her extraordinary dignity is supported by her best friend, a grown-up son, occasional sensual pleasures, and her determination to tell her own story. Passionate in her loves and even in her failures, Sarah Nour El-Din will walk off the page into the reader's life, even as she struggles to compose her own.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50133618426129,"sku":"CIN039304209XA","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51331206742289,"sku":"CIN039304209XG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51874697609489,"sku":"CIN039304209XVG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/039304209X.jpg?v=1751166125"},{"product_id":"i-the-divine-book-rabih-alameddine-9780297607946","title":"I, the Divine","description":"I, THE DIVINE is a novel purportedly opening as a memoir, made up of first chapters as the protagonist, Sarah, struggles to find a way to tell her story but abandons each different perspective, be it her own aged 7 or 17 or her adult sister's many years later. As first chapter follow first chapter Alameddine builds up a rich portrait, not only of Sarah but of her extraordinary extended hybrid family formed by divorce and remarriage, of Beirut in wartime, of her mother's suicide, her sister's madness, her ex-husbands, her son. The device works wonderfully, building up layers of Sarah's story in a manner which is subtle, fresh, intriguing and accessible. We are left with the portrait of a dignified, passionate and determined woman who is trying to carve a fragile peace for herself despite growing up amidst political turmoil and internecine struggle.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50207879463185,"sku":"GOR004967544","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50995927318801,"sku":"GOR007500354","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53586729206033,"sku":"CIN0297607944G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0297607944.jpg?v=1751195868"},{"product_id":"hakawati-book-rabih-alameddine-9780307386274","title":"The Hakawati","description":"In 2003, Osama al-Kharrat returns to Beirut after many years in America to stand vigil at his father's deathbed. As the family gathers, stories begin to unfold: Osama's grandfather was a \u003ci\u003ehakawati\u003c\/i\u003e, or storyteller, and his bewitching tales are interwoven with classic stories of the Middle East. Here are Abraham and Isaac; Ishmael, father of the Arab tribes; the beautiful Fatima; Baybars, the slave prince who vanquished the Crusaders; and a host of mischievous imps. Through Osama, we also enter the world of the contemporary Lebanese men and women whose stories tell a larger, heartbreaking tale of seemingly endless war, conflicted identity, and survival. With \u003cb\u003eThe Hakawati\u003c\/b\u003e, Rabih Alameddine has given us an \u003ci\u003eArabian Nights\u003c\/i\u003e for this century.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50346871947537,"sku":"CIN0307386279A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51000763154705,"sku":"NIN9780307386274","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51744878297361,"sku":"GOR001912102","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52103246577937,"sku":"CIN0307386279G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52724998668561,"sku":"CIN0307386279VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53363803291921,"sku":"GOR003071446","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0307386279.jpg?v=1750813415"},{"product_id":"angel-of-history-book-rabih-alameddine-9780802125767","title":"The Angel of History","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA gay poet is haunted by war and the AIDs crisis in this \"sprawling fever dream of a novel\" by the National Book Award-winning author of \u003ci\u003eThe True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)\u003c\/i\u003e (\u003ci\u003eNPR.org\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eSet over the course of one night in the waiting room of a psych clinic, \u003ci\u003eThe Angel of History\u003c\/i\u003e follows Yemeni-born poet Jacob as he revisits the events of his life. His memories take him from his maternal upbringing in an Egyptian whorehouse to his adolescence under the aegis of his wealthy father and his life as a gay Arab man in San Francisco at the height of AIDS.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eHaunted by an alluring, sassy Satan, who taunts Jacob to remember his painful past, and by dour, frigid Death, who urges him to forget and give up on life, Jacob is also attended to by fourteen saints. With Jacob recalling his life in Cairo, Beirut, Sana'a, Stockholm, and San Francisco, Alameddine gives us a charged philosophical portrayal of a brilliant mind in crisis. This is a profound story that \"marks the triumph of memory over oblivion\" (\u003ci\u003eBookforum\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50367406276881,"sku":"CIN080212576XG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51007264391441,"sku":"NIN9780802125767","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51859113312529,"sku":"CIN080212576XVG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/080212576X.jpg?v=1750817966"},{"product_id":"comforting-myths-book-rabih-alameddine-9780813952512","title":"Comforting Myths","description":"A timely and urgent inquiry by one of global literature's leading lights   In this concisely argued and illuminating book, the PEN\/Faulkner Award–winning author Rabih Alameddine takes the subject of politics and art head-on, questioning the very premise of dividing these two pillars of culture into an either\/or proposition. He reveals how a political dimension enlarges a work of art rather than making it less beautiful or reducing it to a polemic, as we are so often and carelessly taught. But he also ponders what makes art political to begin with: how essential is the artist’s conscious political intent, and what does the reader or viewer contribute to the work’s political capability or significance? In exploring these questions, Alameddine engages intensely with his role as an immigrant and a gay author writing inside a globally dominant, often oblivious culture, and invokes the work of numerous writers, from Tayeb Salih and Aleksandar Hemon to Teju Cole and Salman Rushdie, who also struggle to be heard as something more than an “other.” The book features throughout Alameddine’s brilliantly relatable voice—shrewd, humorous, challenging, and as honest about his own limitations as he is about his passions.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51387028078865,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51387029127441,"sku":"NIN9780813952512","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52836941594897,"sku":"CIN0813952514VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52837114544401,"sku":"CIN0813952514G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0813952514.jpg?v=1751296982"},{"product_id":"perv-stories-book-rabih-alameddine-9780312200411","title":"The Perv: Stories","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51423412420881,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51423413666065,"sku":"CIN0312200412G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0312200412.jpg?v=1750780345"},{"product_id":"true-true-story-of-raja-the-gullible-and-his-mother-book-rabih-alameddine-9781472160522","title":"The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)","description":"SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD  From the inimitable Rabih Alameddine - National Book Award finalist and winner of the PEN\/Faulkner Award - comes a tragicomic saga set in Lebanon, a modern story of family, memory, and the unbreakable (and insane) attachment of a son and his mother.  In a tiny Beirut apartment, sixty-three-year-old Raja and his mother live side by side. A beloved high school philosophy teacher and 'the neighborhood homosexual,' Raja relishes books, meditative walks, order, and solitude. Zalfa, his octogenarian mother, views her son's privacy as a personal affront. She craves nothing more than to know the ins and outs of Raja's work life and love life, boundaries be damned.  When Raja receives an invite to an all-expenses-paid writing residency in America, the timing couldn't be better. It arrives on the heels of a series of personal and national disasters that have left Raja itching for peace and quiet away from his mother and the heartache of Lebanon. But what at first seems a stroke of good fortune soon leads Raja to recount and relive the very disasters and past betrayals he wishes to leave behind.  Wickedly funny, heartbreaking, and told in Raja's irresistible voice, The True, True Story of Raja the Gullible dances across six decades to tell the unforgettable story of a singular life and its absurdities - a tale of mistakes, self-discovery, trauma, and maybe even forgiveness. Above all, it's a wild and sparkling celebration of love.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51632133046545,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":51632133210385,"sku":"NGR9781472160522","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1472160525.jpg?v=1773316414"},{"product_id":"true-true-story-of-raja-the-gullible-and-his-mother-book-rabih-alameddine-9780802166470","title":"The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"Alameddine is a writer with a boundless imagination.\"--NPR\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom the winner of the PEN\/Faulkner Award for Fiction comes a tragicomic love story set in Lebanon, a modern saga of family, memory, and the unbreakable attachment of a son and his mother\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn a tiny Beirut apartment, sixty-three-year-old Raja and his mother live side by side. A beloved high school philosophy teacher and \"the neighborhood homosexual,\" Raja relishes books, meditative walks, order, and solitude. Zalfa, his octogenarian mother, views her son's desire for privacy as a personal affront. She demands to know every detail of Raja's work life and love life, boundaries be damned.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWhen Raja receives an invite to an all-expenses-paid writing residency in America, the timing couldn't be better. It arrives on the heels of a series of personal and national disasters that have left Raja longing for peace and quiet away from his mother and the heartache of Lebanon. But what at first seems a stroke of good fortune soon leads Raja to recount and relive the very disasters and past betrayals he wishes to forget.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eTold in Raja's irresistible and wickedly funny voice, the novel dances across six decades to tell the unforgettable story of a singular life and its absurdities--a tale of mistakes, self-discovery, trauma, and maybe even forgiveness. Above all, \u003ci\u003eThe True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)\u003c\/i\u003e is a wildly unique and sparkling celebration of love.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52095633424657,"sku":"CIN0802166474VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52394216325393,"sku":"CIN0802166474G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52494852653329,"sku":"NIN9780802166470","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":53371717255441,"sku":"CIN0802166474A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780802166470.jpg?v=1773313522"},{"product_id":"penguin-book-of-the-international-short-story-book-rabih-alameddine-9780593834138","title":"The Penguin Book of the International Short Story","description":"In The Penguin Book of the International Short Story, writers from different nations, languages, and sensibilities come together in a globe-spanning and long overdue tour of modern fiction. In 'Super-Frog Saves Tokyo,' Haruki Murakami brings us a man who believes a giant amphibian is enlisting him to protect his city from an impending earthquake. In 'War of the Clowns,' Mozambique's Mia Couto sketches a perfect allegory for our divided culture. In the predecessor story to her iconic novel 'The Vegetarian', Han Kang depicts a protagonist quietly undergoing an unlikely transformation. A Colm Toibin character thinks, 'I do not even believe in Ireland,' while Carol Bensimon reflects from Brazil, 'All great ideas seem like bad ones at some point.' Salman Rushdie brings us to unsettled rural India, Olga Tokarczuk to an ugly woman exhibit at the circus, Abdellah Taia to the queer Arab world, Ted Chiang to a far-off galaxy. The United States is far from the center of the literary universe. This anthology is reminiscent of iconic director Bong Joon Ho's line about overcoming 'the one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles' to enter a new world of film-the work of thoughtful and accomplished translators opens the door wide for those curious about what lies beyond the Western canon and classroom. Writers from six continents, ranging from new voices to literary icons, each offer a window into a distinct point of view, both transcending and illuminating their place of origin. They offer not only captivating prose, but a reminder of the power of the imagination across space and time.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53342345724177,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53342345789713,"sku":"NIN9780593834138","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780593834138.jpg?v=1774488313"},{"product_id":"true-true-story-of-raja-the-gullible-and-his-mother-book-rabih-alameddine-9781420535341","title":"The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53579197776145,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53579197874449,"sku":"NIN9781420535341","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}]}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/de-de\/collections\/autor-buecher-von-rabih-alameddine.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}