Books Set in Asia (Iran) and the North America (California)

The Good Daughter: A Memoir of My Mother's Hidden Life, by Jasmin Darznik (2011)

Read:  December 1, 2025

4 Stars

Books Set in Asia: Iran

An American Martyr in Persia, by Reza Aslan (2024)

This book is a biography of Howard Bakersville, a young American Christian missionary from South Dakota who was sent to Persia in 1907.  Ostensibly, he was there to teach English and preach the gospel.  He became enraptured in the culture and soon found he was in the midst of a democratic revolution.  I had never heard of this democratic revolution in Persia that occurred over 100 years ago.

Read:  April 21, 2025

5 Stars

Books Set in Asia: Tehran, Iran

The Lion Women of Tehran, by Marjan Kamali (2024)

Read: September 3, 2024

5 Stars

Books Set in Europe: England and Switzerland

The Rembrandt Affair, by Daniel Silva (2010)

Read:  December 2, 2023

3 Stars

Other books I've read by Daniel Silva:

The English Assassin (Gabriel Allon # 2) / Read: Jan. 1, 2009

A Death in Vienna (Gabriel Allon # 4) / Read: August 18, 2008

The Black Widow (Gabriel Allon # 16) / Read: Apr. 30, 2017

The Unlikely Spy (Stand Alone Novel) / Read: Apr. 30, 2010

Books Set All Over the World

Exile: Portraits of the Jewish Diaspora, by Annika Hernroth-Rothstein (2020)

Journalist, Annika Hernroth-Rothstein, grew up Jewish in Sweden where she encountered antisemitism at a young age.  Her family was not originally Swedish, and she looked different from blond-haired, blue-eyed classmates.  This later was the seed for her quest to explore how Jews managed to survive in other countries throughout the world.  In the course of a few years, the author traveled to several countries, including Cuba, Iran, Siberia, Venezuela and Morocco, to delve into the small Jewish communities.

The first stop in her book (although not necessarily her first stop chronologically) was the small island of Djerba off the coast of Tunisia.  There she found the Jewish community was thriving, albeit in a self-imposed ghetto.  The community kept to itself, and its non-Jewish neighbors left them alone.  In Iran, the Jewish community emphasized that the country’s constitution provided them the freedom to practice their religion, subject, however, to Sharia law and refrain from showing support for Israel.  Synagogues in Iran were unguarded, unlike synagogues in Europe and the United States.

The author observed vibrant Jewish communities in places where one would not think such a community would be possible.  In each country and community, she visited, she observed how local practices impacted the community.  In some places, such as Venezuela, the community was deeply traditional, but not necessarily religious.  Despite the horrors and poverty of the country, the Venezuelan Jews were a tight-knit community protecting and looking out for each other.

In discussion each country, the author also provided a brief history of how the Jews came to be in that particular country.  It was interesting to read of the Jews of Cuba and Cuba’s interaction with the United States from a Swedish perspective.  American’s view the Cuban Revolution very differently.

I found this to be a very fascinating look at Jews throughout the world.

4.5 Stars

Read: March 29, 2022

Books Set in Asia and Europe: Iran and England

The Saffron Kitchen, by Yasmin Crowther (2006)

 

Maryam Mazer was born and raised in a small village in Iran in a wealthy family.  Her father was a general in the Shah’s army.  She grew up in a somewhat traditional family where women were expected to marry a man selected by the father.  When she is 16, her father found a man for her to marry, but Maryam had other ideas.  She dreamt of being a nurse and helping people.

 

Her closest childhood friend was Ali, her father’s servant.  He grew up in a very tiny village and taught himself to read.  In Maryam’s family, he became her father’s confident and secretary, however, he was treated as a servant.

 

When the Iranian Revolution, Maryam found herself in the middle of a family tragedy and was sent to Tehran, and ultimately to London.  Maryam had ventured from her home during rioting in her village.  Ali saw her and brought her to his apartment until it was safe for her to return the next day.  Her father assumed that she had slept with Ali, and thus shamed the family’s name.  He disowned her; but allowed her to go to Tehran to pursue her nursing dreams.  She left, knowing that Ali had been beaten within an inch of his life by here father’s men.

 

In London, she met Edward, who became her devoted husband, and they had a daughter, Sara.  She had what seemed to be a perfect life.  She would occasionally return to Iran to visit family.  When her last living sister died, however, her 12-year-old nephew, Saeed, was sent to London to live with Maryam and Edward.

 

Saeed had difficulty settling life in London.  His presence in Maryam’s household opened the floodgates to her memories of Iran, which she had suppressed for years.  She believed that the only way to face her demons would be to return to Iran and to the tiny village where she had spent many pleasant summers as a child.  Ali was still living there, waiting for her return.

 

The book goes back and forth between Maryam and her grown daughter, Sara.  Sara’s life was only in England, but she knows of her Iranian roots.  The novel slowly peels back the layers of Maryam’s life so that we understand what brought her to London and back to Iran.

 

Read: January 14, 2021

 

4.5 Stars