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An English language ‘tourist guide’ to life in the ‘caliphate’.

The online book reads like a travel brochure, focussing on life “under the just shade of Islamic law in the Caliphate”. Al Britani describes the street food available and speculates that “in the near future we will be eating curries and chow meins on the streets of Raqqah and Mosul,” in reference to the worldwide recruitment that has been undertaken by Islamic State (IS).

He describes the weather as “Mediterranean”, and writes approvingly of the “bright fluffy snow” in the winters. Although the guide doesn’t contain instructions on terrorism, or how to join IS, it meanders around topics such as global domination while explaining the transport system.

The publication is peppered with British colloquialisms, with al-Britani claiming that IS is “dead serious about state building.” In a chapter regarding technology, the creation of anti-aircraft weaponry is raised, acknowledging that such a thing would be a “game changer”. The “real movers and shakers” are on the battlefield.

It concludes with the threat, “When we descend on the streets of London, Paris and Washington the taste will be far bitterer [], because not only will we spill your blood, but we will also demolish your statues, erase your history and most painfully, convert your children who will then go on to champion our name and curse their forefathers.”

An English language ‘tourist guide’ to life in the ‘caliphate’.

The online book reads like a travel brochure, focussing on life “under the just shade of Islamic law in the Caliphate”. Al Britani describes the street food available and speculates that “in the near future we will be eating curries and chow meins on the streets of Raqqah and Mosul,” in reference to the worldwide recruitment that has been undertaken by Islamic State (IS).

He describes the weather as “Mediterranean”, and writes approvingly of the “bright fluffy snow” in the winters. Although the guide doesn’t contain instructions on terrorism, or how to join IS, it meanders around topics such as global domination while explaining the transport system.

The publication is peppered with British colloquialisms, with al-Britani claiming that IS is “dead serious about state building.” In a chapter regarding technology, the creation of anti-aircraft weaponry is raised, acknowledging that such a thing would be a “game changer”. The “real movers and shakers” are on the battlefield.

It concludes with the threat, “When we descend on the streets of London, Paris and Washington the taste will be far bitterer [], because not only will we spill your blood, but we will also demolish your statues, erase your history and most painfully, convert your children who will then go on to champion our name and curse their forefathers.”

In this engaging and accessible text Aho shows why existentialism cannot be easily dismissed as a moribund or outdated movement. In the aftermath of 'God’s death', existentialist philosophy engages questions with lasting philosophical significance, questions such as 'Who am I?' and 'How should I live?' By showing how existentialism offers insight into what it means to be human, the author illuminates existentialism’s enduring value.

The Refugees is a historical novel, centring on the fate of the Huguenots during the reign of Louis XIV and the revoking of the Edict of Nantes.<

Isan, the novel s protagonist, is either Seth himself or a latter-day avatar. A desert-wandering seer and proponent of desert life, he settles for an extended stay in a fertile oasis. If Jack Frost, the personification of the arrival of winter, were to visit a tropical rain forest, the results might be similarly disastrous. Not surprisingly, since this is a novel by Ibrahim al-Koni, infanticide, uxoricide, serial adultery, betrayal, metamorphosis, murder by a proxy animal, ordinary murder, and a life-threatening chase through the desert all figure in the plot, although the novel is also an existential reflection on the purpose of human life.Ibrahim al-Koni typically layers allusions in his works as if he were an artist adding a suggestion of depth to a painting by applying extra washes. Tuareg folklore, Egyptian mythology, Russian literature, and medieval European thought elbow each other for room on the page. One might expect a novel called The Seven Veils of Seth to be a heavy-handed allegory. Instead, the reader is left wondering. The truth is elusive, a mirage pulsing at the horizon."<

Prophecy Written in Blood! After two hundred years of searching for other immortals, the Undying High Lord Milo Morai has returned to the Horseclans to fulfill an ancient prophecy and lead them to their destined homeland by the sea. But in their path wait the armed might of the Ehleenee and an enemy even more treacherous—the Witchmen—pre-Holocaust scientists who have survived the centuries by stealing other men’s bodies to house their evil minds and who have in their hidden stronghold the means of destroying all who will not become their willing slaves. Can even Milo save the Horseclans from the bloodthirsty Ehleenee and the malevolent Witchmen who would rip him to shreds to discover his secret of immortality?<

For seven hundred years, the Undying High Lord Milo has been building his Confederation, leading the Horseclans slowly across the lands once known as the United States, absorbing city-states and nomadic tribes alike, some by peaceful means, some by the sword. But now his enemies have banded together into an army far larger than Milo can muster. Led by an ancient and evil intelligence, this wave of unstoppable destruction is thundering swiftly down upon the Confederation forces. And Milo has no choice but to call upon all his allies, from the smallest troop of mountain warriors to the notorious pirate ships of the Lord of the Sea Isles, in a final desperate attempt to save the Confederation from seemingly certain doom...<

Meet Mazie Phillips: big-hearted and bawdy, she's the truth-telling proprietress of The Venice, the famed New York City movie theater. It's the Jazz Age, with romance and booze aplenty-even when Prohibition kicks in-and Mazie never turns down a night on the town. But her high spirits mask a childhood rooted in poverty, and her diary, always close at hand, holds her dearest secrets.

When the Great Depression hits, Mazie's life is on the brink of transformation. Addicts and bums roam the Bowery; homelessness is rampant. If Mazie won't help them, then who? When she opens the doors of The Venice to those in need, this ticket-taking, fun-time girl becomes the beating heart of the Lower East Side, and in defining one neighborhood helps define the city.

Then, more than ninety years after Mazie began her diary, it's discovered by a documentarian in search of a good story. Who was Mazie Phillips, really? A chorus of voices from the past and present fill in some of the mysterious blanks of her adventurous life.

Inspired by the life of a woman who was profiled in Joseph Mitchell's classic is infused with Jami Attenberg's signature wit, bravery, and heart. Mazie's rise to "sainthood"-and her irrepressible spirit-is unforgettable.

In this auspicious debut, Molly Antopol cuts a wide swath through the fabric of time and place, exploring people from different cultures who are all painfully human in their joys, desires, tragedies, and heartaches. An actor, phased out of Hollywood for his Communist ties during McCarthyism, tries to share a meaningful moment with his son. An Israeli soldier comes of age when his brother is maimed on their communal farm. A gallerist, swept up by the 1970s dissident art movement, begins smuggling paintings out of Moscow and curating underground shows in her Jerusalem home. This is a rare collection as accomplished at capturing our soaring triumphs as it is our crippling defeats-a hopeful reminder that we are all closer and more capable than we sometimes feel.<

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 , 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 , Rabih Alameddine has given us an for this century.<

One of Beirut’s most celebrated voices, Rabih Alameddine follows his international bestseller, , with a heartrending novel that celebrates the singular life of an obsessive introvert, revealing Beirut’s beauties and horrors along the way.

Aaliya Sohbi lives alone in her Beirut apartment, surrounded by stockpiles of books. Godless, fatherless, divorced, and childless, Aaliya is her family’s "unnecessary appendage.” Every year, she translates a new favorite book into Arabic, then stows it away. The thirty-seven books that Aaliya has translated have never been read — by anyone. After overhearing her neighbors, "the three witches,” discussing her too-white hair, Aaliya accidentally dyes her hair too blue.

In this breathtaking portrait of a reclusive woman’s late-life crisis, readers follow Aaliya’s digressive mind as it ricochets across visions of past and present Beirut. Insightful musings on literature, philosophy, and art are invaded by memories of the Lebanese Civil War and Aaliya’s volatile past. As she tries to overcome her aging 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 gifted Rabih Alameddine has given us a nuanced rendering of a single woman's reclusive life in the Middle East.

A powerful novel, it takes the form of the war-time diary of a young Japanese college student inducted into the Imperial Navy at the height of World War II. Trained as a combat pilot, he is transferred to one of the new "special attack" or "kamikaze" units when the tide of the war turns against Japan.

Like many young men of his generation, Jiro Yoshino, once a scholar of the humanities immersed in the study of poetry and philosophy, will offer everything he has to his country—his body, mind, and soul. By the age of twenty-five, Yoshino understands that his life, and those of his friends, will almost certainly be forfeit to the machinery of war.

This wonderful translation brings to life the harsh realities of war as it explores the personal stories of these young soldiers.