When a commercial flight violates restricted airspace to make an emergency landing at a closed airport in Iran, the passengers are just happy to be alive and ready to transfer to a functional plane. All of them except one... The American technology consultant in business class is not who he says he is. Zac Miller is a CIA analyst. And after an agent's cover gets blown, Zac--though never trained to be a field operative--volunteers to take his place,...

Relates the true account of the 1979 rescue of six American hostages from the Canadian embassy in Tehran during the early days of the Iran Hostage Crisis as the result of an ingenious plan developed by CIA agent Antonio Mendez.

"Mama Shamsi is off to the market, and today, Samira gets to go with her! Samira loves spending time with her grandmother, and she especially loves her chador, which Mama Shamsi wraps around herself every time they leave the house. As the pair get closer and closer to the market, Samira is worried about getting lost in the crowded streets of Tehran, until she has an idea: She can hide under her grandmother's chador. But when Mama Shamsi says no--if...

In her first work of nonfiction, winner of the 2018 UNESCO City of Literature Paul Engle Prize Dina Nayeri--an author whose "exploration of the exile's predicament is tender and urgent" (The New Yorker)--examines what it means to be a refugee through her own story of childhood escape from Iran, and through the stories of other refugees and asylum seekers What is it like to be a refugee? It is a question many of us do not give much thought to, and...

This survey of Iran's historical development covers everything from its origins in ancient empires to its status as a modern nation-state. Iran, also known as Persia, has over 2500 years of history. It is one of the world's first truly multicultural empires, and modern day Iran is based upon one of the world's oldest continuous civilizations. Today, Iran is populated by over 74 million residents, and 10 percent of the world's oil reserves are within...

"Are we on the cusp of detente with Iran? Conventional wisdom certainly seems to believe so. In the aftermath of the interim nuclear deal struck in November 2013 between the Islamic Republic and the P5+1 powers (the United States, France, England, Russia, China and Germany), hopes are now running high for a historic reconciliation between Iran's clerical regime and the West. Yet there is already ample reason for skepticism that the United States and...

With a thrilling narrative that sheds much light on recent events, this national bestseller brings to life the 1953 CIA coup in Iran that ousted the country's elected prime minister, ushered in a quarter-century of brutal rule under the Shah, and stimulated the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and anti-Americanism in the Middle East. Selected as one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post and The Economist, it now features a new preface...

"Kim Ghattas seamlessly weaves together history, geopolitics, and culture to deliver a gripping read of the largely unexplored story of the rivalry between between Saudi Arabia and Iran, born from the sparks of the 1979 Iranian revolution and fueled by American policy. With vivid story-telling, extensive historical research and on-the-ground reporting, Ghattas dispels accepted truths about a region she calls home. She explores how Sunni Saudi Arabia...

"Kimiâ Sadr fled Iran at the age of ten in the company of her mother and sisters to join her father in France. Now twenty-five and facing the future she has built for herself as well as the prospect of a new generation, Kimiâ is inundated by her own memories and the stories of her ancestors, which come to her in unstoppable, uncontainable waves. In the waiting room of a Parisian fertility clinic, generations of flamboyant Sadrs return to her, including...

This is the story of Azar Nafisi's dream and of the nightmare that made it come true. For two years before she left Iran in 1997, Nafisi gathered seven young women at her house every Thursday morning to read and discuss forbidden works of Western literature. They were all former students whom she had taught at university. They were unaccustomed to being asked to speak their minds, but soon they began to open up and to speak more freely, not only about...