Guests of the ayatollah by Mark Bowden
On November 4 1979, a group of revolutionary students lead by Ayatollah Khomeini staged a sit in at the U.S  embassy protesting the American decision to allow the Shah entry to the U.S for medical attention. The students took 66 American hostages for the best part of 444 days. This was the first American confrontation with militant Islam. The author of 'Black hawk down' brings us a detailed account of the events through both sides of the conflicts, and recounts the failed attempt by the Delta Force Units to rescue the hostages. By no means an academic account, this book demonstrates the human side of the story, making it an interesting representation of the events.  

The Quest for Democracy in Iran by Fakhreddin Azimi
The constitutional revolution of 1906 placed Iran as a leader for the establishment of democracy in the non western world. The promise of a representative government was cut short by the rise of the Pahlavi in the 1920s, slowly leading up to the 1979 Islamic revolution. In his book Fakhreddin Azimi offers a view on Iran’s modern history which demonstrates that the agenda behind the 1906 revolution is ever-present, through the examination of the frustration of the Iranian people in their quest for freedom and social justice.

Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
In this gripping memoir Azar Nafisi recounts her memories of the years that she spent in Iran as a professor in English literature through the books that she taught, amongst which are works by Nabokov, Fitzagerald, James, and Austen. After resigning from her teaching position at the University of Tahran, Nafisi invites seven of her best female students to attend a secret book club. For two years, every week, they meet to discuss books that had been banned by the authorities. Slowly, these meetings turn into a platform for discussing their personal lives as well as the social and political realities of Iran in the mid nineties.

Khomeini: life of the ayatollah by Baqer Moin
How did Khomeini manage to claim so much support from all the classes of the Iranian society?  What were his views on politics and religion?  How did he overturn the rule of the Shah through the Iranian Islamic revolution? Moin answers all of these questions in a book rich with facts on the Aytollah’s life, his politics, and his views on the world.

Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire by Andrew Newman
The Safavid era (1501-1772) is often viewed as the golden era of Iran’s history. In his book, Andrew Newman takes a look at the cultural, political, and social realities of those times.  Examining architecture, Science, Philosophy and religion, he offers a re-evaluation of the Safavids’ place in history.

Censoring an Iranian love story by Shahriar Mandanipour
The first of Shahriar Mandanipour novels to appear in English tells the story of an ambitious writer who is trying to write a love story that will bypass the censors’ inspection. He is writing the story of Dara and Sara, teenagers who are exploring sensual and emotional love in a nation that forbids contact of any sort between members of the opposing sex. Since he has known his censor, nicknamed Pofiry Petrovich, for a while, the writer can anticipate his objections, and as the story unfolds and the teenagers’ love story develops the writer auto censors paragraphs on end.
Written with a dose of irony and humour, this book takes us into one of the world’s most fascinating yet least understood cultures