About this title: As Isaac navigates the tedium and terrors of prison, forging tenuous trusts, his wife feverishly searches for him, suspecting, all the while, that their once-trusted housekeeper has turned on them and is now acting as an informer. And as his daughter, in a childlike attempt to stop the wave of baseless arrests, engages in illicit activities, his son, sent to New York before the rise of the Ayatollahs, struggles to find happiness even as he realizes that his family may soon be forced to embark on a journey of incalculable danger. 'A remarkable debut ..."The Septembers of Shiraz" is ...
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Description: Acceptable. Former Library book. Shows definite wear, and perhaps considerable marking on inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Very Good. 0061130419 This trade sized paperback book is in REAL GOOD SHAPE! ! FIRST EDITION! Full number line is 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1! Some creasing of the spine and some very minor signs of wear from reading--nothing major at all! SMOKE FREE HOME! Do not settle for worn, torn, throwaways. Pay a few pennies more for a book that looks a wrinkle or two away from near new! read more
Description: Like New. 2007-Hardcover-May contain minor shelf-wear. Otherwise, volume un-read and in "As-New" condition. -Used-Like New-Hall Street Books proudly ships from Brooklyn, NY. All orders are processed and shipped within 24 hours, M-F. 100% money back No-Worry guarantee with expedited delivery and delivery confirmation available. read more
Description: Fine. 0061130419 Ships next business day. NEW/UNREAD! ! ! Text is Clean and Unmarked! --Be Sure to Compare Seller Feedback and Ratings before Purchasing--Has a small black ink mark on bottom/exterior edge of pages. May have light shelf wear to cover from storage, if any. read more
Description: Good. 0061130419 25771 PB: spine smooth, text appears clean, but may contain highlighting/underlining, or any other marks (as it is a used book) cover has light shelf wear w/corner crease-allow up to 21 business days for standard USPS media mail. wt1lbpf. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Ecco
Date Published: 2007
ISBN-13:9780061130403ISBN:0061130400
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Spine is square, no visible creasing to spine, binding tight, uncorrected proof, front cover has been bent. Cover is on backwards & upside down in relation to pages inside. Glued binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 340 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
"This book tells you about the Iranian revolution through the eyes of one family. The father gets taken away to prison. The mother and young daughter are left at home to live without him, not knowing if he's alive or dead. And a son in his early twenties has been sent abroad and is living in Brooklyn and dealing with starting his own life, bereft of his family, dealing with loneliness. This book does a good job of giving you all of those perspectives. I of course liked the class analysis, or lack thereof. I liked it when the wealthy family was challenged because of their wealth, and what they thought of that, and when the housekeeper was challenged to think outside the box, and what she did with that. The scene from Doctor Zhivago, where they arrive home to their huge house, and it's been taken over by others, and they're told something like "twenty families are living here now," is apt. I also liked the parts of where these people had been exposed to western culture, and appreciated those things (both things like what we call classical music, but also the excesses,) but all of this was being overturned. A quick, good read. Recommended."
"There is alot to like about The Septembers of Shiraz. It takes place in a fascinating setting, Early 1980s Iran. Its characters experience pain, terror and brief snippets of joy all while remaining very human but yet very compelling. I found myself rooting for each one of them, though at various times, i bemoaned their displays of human weakness, stubbornness, or hints of cowardice.
Beyond the characters, this book is about a movement, the Khomeini Revolution in Iran and about the lives that were swept up as the masked mullahs seized power. As the books protagonists suffer, one must ask, "Why are these revolutionaries so intent on inflicting pain on the population?" and "What makes these radicals tick?"
Sofer tries to respond to those questions throughout the book. At times, the books characters cite the existence of Israel as their reason for persecuting the Jewish protagonists. At other times, they argue that the revolutionaries represent all those who have been "exploited" by Iran's elite. At other times its the less-than-fully-virtuous lifestyles of the various protagonists that draws revolutionary ire.
Are any of those convincing? Its up to the reader.
The plot moves crisply. The language is very pretty. And both villain and hero alike are, almost always, thought-provoking."
"We read to go other places, to sample other lives. Reading, for me, at times lets me escape into lives I'd never want to lead, into places I'd never want to go.
The Septembers of Shiraz takes me deep into these lives I'd never lead, places I'd never go. Isaac Amin, along with his wife, his young daughter, and even his son in distant America, suffer the changes revolution in Iran creates. The persecuted become the persecutors. There is no safe place. Fear and anger breed more fear and anger. Hatred generates more hatred.
Amin's imprisonment spins and bends everything the family has believed and loved. Is it wrong to overlook the cruelties inflicted on the weak? How do you decide whether to remain in a familiar now dangerous place or dare to start a new life from scratch? Should one save a few strangers while risking one's family?
I couldn't stop reading this story. Would Amin live or die? Would the family stay or go? How had the pain inflicted on the jailers affect the way the jailers treated the jailed? Who were the good guys? How did the world become such a mess and how could it ever be made right?
This was a powerful book, beautifully told, that generated question after question in my mind long after I read the last page and closed the book."
"Why do I bother to read about the Middle East? Nothing joyful ever seems to come from there. You can bet there won't be any chic lit from that region as England seems to have the market on that. But, just once, I would love to see a novel come from the Middle East that has an independent female journalist who works for a fashion magazine (Jezeera Style) where she pines daily for her boss but falls in love, in the end, for an unassuming delivery boy who cycles the streets of Tabriz.
But no, instead I read about a man who gets placed into prison for being a Zionist spy (really he just has money and that seems to be enough to inspire incarceration and many scenes of horrid torture). Iran is a country that seems to overflow with the accused innocent who suffer brutal torture at the hands of those who are just attempting to stay out of the limelight themselves. Anyhow, the novel follows the characters of a family whose father has been taken. The book managed to balance the father's imprisonment with his wife's attempts to make things work without him there. In the end, neither of them will ever be able to understand what the experience was like for the other; however they will quietly go about their lives carrying their individual burdens."
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