Holy Land reading list

RECOMMENDED READING

The Bible

Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, The Holy Land.  An Oxford Archaeological Guide from Earliest Times to 1700. 5^th ed.  (Oxford University Press, 2008).

Suad Amairy - Sharon and My Mother-in-law: Ramallah Diaries (New York: Pantheon Books, 2005)

Hanan Ashrawi, This Side of Peace: A Personal Account (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995)

Sari Nusseibeh, Once Upon A Country: A Palestinian Life (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007)

Simon Sebag Montefiore, Jerusalem: The Biography (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011).

Ari Shavit, My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2013).

Raja Shehadeh - Palestinian Walks: Forays into a Vanishing Landscape (New York: Scribner, 2008)

Avi Shlaim - The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001)

Sandy Tolan, The Lemon Tree: An Arab, A Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East (Bloomsbury, 2006).

Lawrence Wright, Thirteen Days in September: Carter, Begin, and Sadat at Camp David (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014).

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

Translations of the Quran:

The Koran Interpreted  by A. J. Arberry 

Readings in the Quran by Kenneth Cragg

Religion:

Arthur Green, Judaism’s Ten Best Ideas: A Brief Guide for Seekers (Woodstock VT: Jewish Lights, 2014)

Memoir:

Ibtisam Barakat, Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007)

Amos Oz, A Tale of Love and Darkness (London: Vintage, 2005).

Donald Nicholl, The Testing of Hearts: A Pilgrim’s Journal (London: Lamp Press, 1989).

Fiction:

Laurie R. King, O Jerusalem (New York: Bantam, 1999)

History:

Karen Armstrong, Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996).

Martin Van Creveld, The Land of Blood and Honey: The Rise of Modern Israel (New York: Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s Press, 2010).

Historical perspectives

Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Scott Anderson 

A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East by David Fromkin 

Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph by T. E. Lawrence

Josephus, The Jewish War (Penguin)