So far in 2022:
One Long River of Song, essays by Brian Doyle
Story of a City: A Childhood in Amman, memoir by Abd Al-Rahman Munif
We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled, voices from Syria, collected by Wendy Pearlman
Shaykh of Shayks, by Yoav Alon
Draft No. 4, by John McPhee
The Friday Night Knitting Club
Pillars, by Rachel Pieh Jones
The Joy Luck Club, fiction by Amy Tan
One Thousand Mornings, poems by Mary Oliver
A Solemn Pleasure, essays by Melissa Pritchard
The Art of Leaving, a memoir by Ayelet Tsabari
The Wild Fox of Yemen, poems by Threa Almontaser
Poems of Jerusalem, by Yehuda Amichai
The Bedouin, by Shelagh Weir
Hateship, Friendship, Loveship, Courtship, Marriage, short stories by Alice Munro
Art and Faith, by Makoto Fujimura
Bombs and Bouganvilla, Decker
Jerusalem, Drawn and Quartered, a memoir by Sarah Tuttle-Singer
Places I’ve Taken My Body, essays by Molly McCulley Brown
Bub: Essays from Just North of Nashville, by Drew Bratcher
The Warden and the Wolf King, a novel by Andrew Peterson
Thank you, Arabs! by Phyllis Sutton
Suffering and the Heart of God, by Diane Langberg
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, a children’s novel by Grace Lin
Arab Folktales, edited by Inea Bushnaq
The Last Sin Eater, a novel by Francine Rivers
And Then There Were None, a murder mystery by Agatha Christie
Cassandra at the Wedding, a novel by Dorothy Baker
2021:
Invincible Louisa, a biography of Louisa May Alcott
The Adventures of Paddington
The Night Circus, a novel
Threads of Identity, by Widad Kawar
Palestinian Walks, by Shehadeh
Native, by Kaitlin Curtice
Portrait of a Palestinian Village, photos by Hilma Granqvist
Jack, a novel by Marilynne Robinson
My Bright Abyss, essays by Christian Wiman
Humble Roots, by Hannah Anderson
The Birchbark House, a children’s novel by Louise Erdrich
Two Funerals, Then Easter, poems by Rachel Joy Welcher
Pushing the Bear, a novel by Diane Glancy
Land Without Borders, by Nir Baram
Letters from the Interior, poems by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha
Night at the Fiestas, short stories by Kristen Valdez Quade
Tatreez & Tea, by Wafa Ghnaim
Prodigal God, by Tim Keller
Four Seasons in Rome, by Anthony Doerr
Gate of the Sun, a novel by Elias Khoury
World of Wonders, essays by Amy Nezhukumatahil
I Saw Ramallah, by Barghouti
East of Eden, a novel by John Steinbeck
The Shawl, a novella by Cynthia Ozick
Stewards of Eden, by Sandra Ritcher
2020:
The Forty Rules of Love, a novel of Rumi by Elif Shafak
Men in the Sun, short stories by Ghassan Kanafani
Midaq Alley, a novel by Nagib Mahfouz
The Myth of the American Dream, essays by D.L. Mayfield
Love’s Long Line, essays by Sophfronia Scott
Damascus: Taste of a City, a food memoir by Rafik Schami and Marie Fadel
The Revenge of the Babysat, a Calvin and Hobbes comic book
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
The Story of Doctor Dolittle, a children’s novel by Hugh Lofting
Beloved, a novel by Toni Morrison
Where the Sidewalk Ends, poems by Shel Silverstein
Curiosities and Splendour, classic travel writing by various authors
Voices of Jordan, non-fiction by Rana F. Sweis
The Help, a novel by Kathryn Stockett
Adorning the Dark, by Andrew Peterson
White Teeth, a novel by Zadie Smith (incomplete)
The Wingfeather Saga, a children’s fantasy series by Andrew Peterson
Pillars of Salt, a novel by Fadia Faqir
Exit West, a novel by Mohsin Hamid
Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen, by Mary Norris
Redeployment, short stories by Phil Klay
A Cricket in Times Square, a children’s novel by George Selden
The Complete Tales of Winnie the Pooh, by A.A. Milne
What It Done to Us, poems by Essy Stone
The Thief of Corinth, a novel by Tessa Afshar
Born a Crime, a memoir by South African comedian Trevor Noah
Treasuring Christ When Your Hands Are Full, by Gloria Furman
2019:
The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, a novel by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Trumpet of the Swan, a children’s novel by E.B. White
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, a novel by J.R.R. Tolkien
A Spool of Blue Thread, a novel by Anne Tyler
Charlotte’s Web, a children’s novel by E.B. White
The Essays of E.B. White
The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, a novel by J.R.R. Tolkien
Ayesha at Last, a novel by Uzma Jalaluddin
Wild, a memoir of the Pacific Northwest Trail by Cheryl Strayed
Virgil Wander , a novel by Leif Enger
Desperate, a parenting book by Sarah Mae & Sally Clarkson
The Baghdad Blues, poems by Iraqi-American writer Sinan Antoon
The Line Becomes a River , non-fiction by Francisco Cantu
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, a novel by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
I Will Shout Your Name, short stories by John Fox
Swing Time, a novel by Zadie Smith
Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations, a biography by Georgina Howell
Water & Salt, poems by Palestinian-Syrian-American writer Lena Khalaf Tufaha
2018:
Four Seasons in Rome, non-fiction by Anthony Doerr
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows, a novel by J.K. Rowling
Housekeeping, a novel by Marilynne Robinson
Married to a Bedouin, memoir by Marguerite van Geldermalsen
Delighting in the Trinity, practical theology by Michael Reeves
How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God?, practical theology by Larry Hurtado
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, a novel by Helen Simonson
It’s What I Do, memoir by war photographer Lynsey Addario
The Refugees, short stories by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Let Sleeping Vets Lie, memoir by James Herriot
Hammer Is the Prayer, poems by Christian Wiman
Sea Glass, poems by Lucy Shaw
Jesus’ Son, short stories by Denis Johnson
The Monk of Mokha, non-fiction by Dave Eggers
Gate of the Sun, a novel by Elias Khoury
The White Album, essays by Joan Didion
Past Favorites (i.e., books that have followed me everywhere; writers I want to write like; books that taught me my craft):
The Wet Collection and The World Is on Fire, essays by Joni Tevis
The Long Weeping, essays by Jessie van Eerden
The Kite Runner, a novel by Khaled Hosseini
One Thousand Gifts, Christian living by Ann Voskamp
The Complete Short Stories of Flannery O’Connor
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, essays by Annie Dillard
The Shawl, a novella by Cynthia Ozick
19 Varieties of Gazelle, poems by Naomi Shihab Nye
The Elements of Style, by Strunk & White
Heather M. Surls 