Description: Very Good. Former Library book. Great condition for a used book! Minimal wear. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Like New. 2009-Paperback-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
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: HarperPerennial
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780007286249ISBN:0007286244
Description: New. NEW-SHOP SOILED COPY-TRUSTED DEVON (UK) BASED SELLER-IN STOCK-SENT WITHIN 1 WORKING DAY-AVAILABLE BY EMAIL FOR QUERIES-NO QUIBBLE REFUND IF NOT COMPLETELY SATISFIED- read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780061452581ISBN:0061452580
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Binding: book Hardcover
Publisher: Harpercollins
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780061452567ISBN:0061452564
Description: Brand New. Brand new. Never read or owned. May have a remainder mark. 342 pages. 9.30 x 6.30 x 1.50 in. 21.4 oz. Post-September 11 Chicago becomes the site of a cultural collision involving a sixties-style anti-establishment professor who is targeted for his relationship with an African-American woman, a veiled Ph.D. candidate whose traditional upbringing is challenged by her American experiences, and an émigré whose western values are countered by questions about his daughter's honor. 50, 000 ... read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS Country = UNITED KINGDOM
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780007286249ISBN:0007286244
Description: BRAND NEW PAPERBACK. 356 pages. Sex, money and politics are the driving forces of society in this new novel from bestselling author alaa al aswany. (Paperback) read more
Edition: First U.S. Edition, 1st printing
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Harper
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780061452567ISBN:0061452564
Description: BRAND NEW. Brand new hardcover in brand new dustjacket, DJ has slight rubbing/light soiling on bottom edge of back of DJ. Publisher's review materials slipped in. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Harpercollins
Date Published: 2008-10-01
ISBN-13:9780061452567ISBN:0061452564
Description: NEW. Hardcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780061452567. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Harper
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780061452567ISBN:0061452564
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Fourth Estate, London
Date Published: 2008
Description: Very Good. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. 342pp. Large format paperback in very good condition. 'Captivating and controversial...an amazing glimpse of modern Egyptian society and culture' read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: HarperPerennial
Date Published: 30/04/2009
ISBN-13:9780007286249ISBN:0007286244
Description: Used-Good. Book in good or better condition. Dispatched same day from warehouse. Please email with any questions for quick response. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: HarperPerennial
Date Published: 30/04/2009
ISBN-13:9780007286249ISBN:0007286244
Description: Used-Good. Book in good or better condition. Dispatched same day from warehouse. Please email with any questions for quick response. read more
Edition: 1st Edition/1st Printing
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: HarperCollins, NY
Date Published: 2008
Description: Very Good. Book. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. Utterly clean text; bright covers have faint soiling on white back. Softcover advance reading copy. read more
Description: Good. Minimal damage to cover and binding. Pages show light use. With pride from Motor City. All books guaranteed. Best Service, Best Prices. read more
Binding: ARC/Proof
Publisher: HarperCollins, New York
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780061452567ISBN:0061452564
Description: Very Good/Wraps. . Trade paperback, very good condition, w. lightly rubbed wraps--sme lt marks. A few lt spots on r. Ltly bumepd corners, sme lt edgwr at bottom of fr sp edge. Ltly tanned p. edges. Cln, tight, unmarked. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Harper
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780061452567ISBN:0061452564
Description: New, Publisher overstock, may have small remainder mark. Excellent condition, never read, purchased from publisher as excess inventory. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Harper
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780061452567ISBN:0061452564
Description: New, Publisher overstock, may have small remainder mark. Excellent condition, never read, purchased from publisher as excess inventory. read more
Description: New. No dust jacket as issued. Brand new advance reading copy/uncorrected proof in PAPERBACK (Limited Print). Cover art is similar to retail copy. Buy with confidence from a Work At Home Mom! Email me with any questions. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780061452581ISBN:0061452580
Description: Good. Clean pages good condition overall minor shelf wear sharp corners tight spine All new inventory received to basement All orders guaranteed and ship within 24 hours. Your purchase supports More Than Words, a nonprofit job training program for youth, empowering youth to take charge of their lives by taking charge of a business. read more
"when this book first came out .. i read the first chapter and then followed the story of shaymaa and tarek til the very end. skipping the rest of the novel! it is so compartmentalized that this actually worked! this time i'm reading it all. thats because i like alaa elaswany's non fiction essays. my opinion of his fiction wasnt very high .. i just like his politics. anyway chicago is by far better than 3omaret ya3qubian.
some parts were really great .. the scene where ra2fat is operating a surgery for example. elaswany knows more about his egyptian characters, but his portrayal of americans is stereotypical and simplified. almost borrowed from a formal account or from second hand material.
chicago tackles many issues and many character types. it is very issue-oriented.. almost like a committed newspaper commentary on tolerance, coptic - muslim relations, the state of politics and democracy, racism in america, cross cultural marriages and midlife crisis..etc"
"I picked this up from the library on a whim, because the cover and premise looked interesting. It's a translated Egyptian novel, about life in Chicago mostly from the perspective of Egyptian students and emigres.
Overall, this was pretty engaging and it was instructive (and often depressing) to see how life in America (under Bush) is/was viewed by a liberal writer from a Middle Eastern culture. It also reminded me, as did reading 'White Tiger' last year, that I don't know very much about the internal politics of other countries unless they happen to be featured on NPR when I happen to be listening. Al Aswany is very critical of President Mubarak and his administration's relationship with the U.S., but I had to google to find out why. This is one of the of the values of reading international fiction, to me, once I get over being embarrassed by all the things I don't pay attention to.
As a novel, this was just okay. There are a lot of different point of view characters who are sketched without much depth, and there's more a focus on personal melodrama (one character has a drug-addicted daughter, another is impotent with his American wife because he misses his true love back in Egypt), and when the story moves away from Egyptian emigres to American characters, it feels particularly forced. The whole thing seems very well-intentioned -- there's a lot of bad treatment of women told from the female point of view, and apparently meant to make us aware that women are often treated badly, but it's mostly just unpleasant to read without offering much in the way of insight. I'd have liked to see a few of the storylines fleshed out more, particularly the political intrigues.
Eye-opening, in a lot of ways, but not nearly what it could have been as literature."
"Like in a chess game, Dr. Al-Aswani kills all of the players and keeps the last two(not literally). He did the same thing in his first novel.
If books were rated, I'd rate this one "R" for nudity and sexual scenes....and I'm not sure if Dr. Al-Aswani is obsessed with sexual scenes, or he just enjoys dissecting his characters down to the core exposing every detail of their private moments.
For a moment, I thought perhaps the writer took a crash course in psychiatry before writing this novel. I was very impressed by his ability to present and explain what was going through the mind of each character.
With this novel, Dr. Al-Aswani provides a proof that he can write about anything he wants; history, politics, religion, relationships, ....etc.
What I did not like in this novel?
1. Too many main characters.
2. Religion- the use of Islamic believes and the Quranic verses in a sarcastic way.
3. Irony- Nagi, who his name means "the survival" or the "rescued one", is full of irony. He's Muslim yet he drinks heavily, and doesn't mind seeking a prostitute. His best friend is Coptic Christian, and his girl friend is Jewish, and he has strong patriotic feelings towards Egypt. At the end he was picked up by the FBI as a terrorist suspect....and I'm still not sure why he was the only character who was given the voice of a first person; everyone else was as a second or third person.
4. Exaggeration- -Sarah dyeing of addiction because her parents did not really love each other, and b/c her father failed to build a clear inner sense of identity, was a bit hard to absorb.
-Marawa's fantasy "...with whom am I going to sleep tonight "was overbaord...but what do I know? Probably Dr. Al-Aswani knows better than I regarding women's fantasies...yet he doesn't seem very well updated with today's celebrities. Rushdy Abaza died in 1980, long before G.Bush the father became a president in 1993...So I'd imagine that today's 20-30 years old girl would probably think of someone like Amro Diab,Tamir Hosni, or Hani Salama.
-Carol, a black American, not finding a job; not even as a baby sitter or to walk the dogs was unrealistic.
Still I think Dr. Al-Aswani worked hard on this novel, and I was impressed.
I'd like to see him writing his next novel about one or at most two main characters."
"As in The Yakobian Building, Alaa Al-Aswany stands out among Egyptian writers as a firm critic of social hypocrisy who is adept at intertwining several urban lives together to create a riveting plot. However, also as in his prior novel, he has a weakness for the tinny fanfare of an all-out life-or-death Hollywood ending, leaving his characters in the muck, relationships broken, young people in torture chambers, suicides, tears, etc, out of which one couple emerges (I won't say which) to give us hope. I liked it in The Yakobian Building, but this time around I saw all its artifice and kitsch. I couldn't put down the book I was liking it so much, but the resolution really felt forced and left a sour taste in my mouth."
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