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Book Reviews on...

Girls of Riyadh by Rajaa Alsanea
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Girls of Riyadh

by Rajaa Alsanea

Recommendations from our site

“The book seemed to provoke the realisation that Muslim women actually have a sexual life and they talk about it in very open ways among themselves. It is part of an oral culture. People in the West don’t realize that historically in Islamic civilization there were sexual manuals published and circulated—written by men mostly—about sex. So, the publication of this book exposed this ignorance in the West about the sexual lives of Muslims and the fascination with them. It’s almost like an orientalist-fixation fetishism.” Read more...

The best books on Saudi Arabia

Madawi Al-Rasheed, Anthropologist

“It’s a 21st-century look at Saudi, one of the most secretive societies in the world. There was a lot of hype about this book. The author was likened to Candace Bushnell, the author of Sex and the City. So this was the Eastern version but without the sex! It was a glimpse into this secret society and that is what drew me to it. It talks about dating, relationships, love, Islam and expectations. And of course Saudi is a very conservative Islamic society.” Read more...

The best books on Islam

Shazia Khan, Journalist

Our most recommended books

  • War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

    War and Peace
    by Leo Tolstoy

  • On Liberty
    by John Stuart Mill

  • Middlemarch
    by George Eliot

  • Nineteen Eighty-Four
    by George Orwell

  • The Confessions
    by Augustine (translated by Maria Boulding)

  • Plato's Republic

    Republic
    by Plato

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