Abu Dhabi--an obscure Middle Eastern principality that happens to be the richest city in the world. This book tells the story of Abu Dhabi's ambitions to transform itself from a sleepy sheikhdom into a thriving international metropolis and a hub of business and leisure. It traces Abu Dhabi's boom years from 2009 to 2011 from the perspective of a Westerner working for the Urban Planning Council, the government agency that planned and coordinated all of the massive development activity....

In the 1960s, Kamal Al-Solaylee’s father was one of the wealthiest property owners in Aden, in the south of Yemen, but when the country shrugged off its colonial roots, his properties were confiscated, and the family was forced to leave. The family moved first to Beirut, which suddenly became one of the most dangerous places in the world, then Cairo. After a few peaceful years, even the safe haven of Cairo struggled under a new wave of Islamic extremism that culminated with the assassinati...

A Thousand Farewells is the heartfelt and personal chronicle of a journalist who has devoted her career to covering one of the world’s most volatile regions.In 1976, Nahlah Ayed’s family gave up a comfortable life in Winnipeg for the squalor of a Palestinian refugee camp in Amman, Jordan. The transition was jarring but it was during this unsettling period that Ayed first closely observed the people whose heritage she shared. She had to become accustomed to...

**A BEAUTIFUL TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY EDITION OF THE BOOKER PRIZE-WINNING MASTERPIECE WITH A NEW PREFACE FROM THE AUTHOR“Briskly paced and sumptuously written, the novel ponders questions of nationhood, modernity, and class, in ways both moving and revelatory.” —The New Yorker**In a crumbling, isolated house at the foot of Mount Kanchenjunga in the Himalayas, an embittered judge wants only to retire in peace when his orphaned granddaughter, Sai, arrives on his doorst...

The gripping story of a young woman who fled civil war in Syria and endured a harrowing journey across the Mediterranean for a chance of a better life.Adrift in a frigid sea, no land in sight, just debris from the ship's wreckage and floating corpses all around, nineteen-year-old Doaa Al Zamel stays afloat on a small inflatable ring and clutches two little girls—barely toddlers—to her body. The children had been thrust into Doaa's arms by their drowning relatives, a...

Winner of the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Non-Fiction:In the midst of an unfolding international crisis, the renowned journalist Deborah Campbell finds herself swept up in the mysterious disappearance of Ahlam, her guide, "fixer," and friend. Her frank, personal account of her journey to rescue her, and the triumph of friendship and courage over terrorism, is as riveting as it is illuminating.The story begins in 2007 when Deborah Campbell travels ...

Jeremy Kroeker is a Mennonite with a motorcycle. He doesn’t have a funny beard and he’s never even driven a buggy, but his family hails from the same Mennonite community that Miriam Toews fictionalized in A Complicated Kindness. From childhood through college, Kroeker attended Christian schools where he learned to think critically back to predetermined conclusions.Years later, when his faith begins to unravel, Kroeker stops short of tossing it all aside, choosing instead t...

The Medina -- the Old City -- of Fez is the best-preserved, medieval walled city in the world. Inside this vibrant Moroccan community, internet cafes and mobile phones coexist with a maze of donkey-trod alleyways, thousand-year-old sewer systems, and Arab-style houses, gorgeous with intricate, if often shabby, mosaic work.While vacationing in Morocco, Suzanna Clarke and her husband, Sandy, are inspired to buy a dilapidated, centuries-old riad in Fez with the aim of restoring it to ...

Europe is facing a wave of migration unmatched since the end of World War II - and no one has reported on this crisis in more depth or breadth than the Guardian's migration correspondent, Patrick Kingsley. Throughout 2015, Kingsley travelled to 17 countries along the migrant trail, meeting hundreds of refugees making epic odysseys across deserts, seas and mountains to reach the holy grail of Europe.This is Kingsley's unparalleled account of who these voyagers are. It's abo...

This is the official Holiday FM Guide to Dubai. This handy bitesize guide gives you everything you might want for the ideal trip to the big city. Background information about the history of the City will hopefully give you a better understanding of its origins and make your visit more enjoyable. Get local information about the must see sightseeing places to visit to help make your trip amazing and memorable. The guide also covers tips on where to eat and drink and what to expect the weath...

Our illustrated travel guide will take you to Northern Cyprus. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is a self-proclaimed republic on the northern and eastern side of the island of Cyprus. Turkey is currently the only state which recognizes the TRNC. Cyprus itself is an island in the Mediterranean Sea, south of Turkey. After Sicily and Sardinia, Cyprus is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Cyprus gained its independence from the United Kingdom in 1960. ...

It is as vast as the United States and so arid that most bacteria cannot survive there. Its loneliness is so extreme it is said thatmigratory birds will land beside travelers, just for the company. William Langewiesche came to the Sahara to see it as its inhabitants do, riding its public transport, braving its natural and human dangers, depending on its sparse sustenance and suspect hospitality. From his journey, which took him across the desert's hyperarid core from Algiers to Dakar, he h...