Living In Romantic Baghdad

In 1924, an adventurous young couple accepted a commission to open an American school for boys in Baghdad. Setting foot on Iraqi soil the very day that the Constituent Assembly convened in Baghdad to frame a constitution for the new nation, Ida Staudt and her husband Calvin witnessed the birth of this fledgling country. For the next twenty-three years, they taught hundreds of young boys whose ethnicity, religious background, and economic status were as varied as the region itself. Cultivating strong bonds with their students and their families, the Staudts were welcomed into their lives and homes, ranging from the royal palace to refugee huts and Bedouin tents. In her enlightening memoir, Staudt skillfully interweaves the political and historical setting with personal anecdotes, recalling the people she encountered and the places she explored. With vivid descriptions, she relates the complexities of the people, the grandeur of the antiquities, and the beauty of the region’s topography. Living in Romantic Baghdad evokes the city, the villages, and the communities of Iraq, capturing a unique chapter in modern Iraqi history, one marked by pluralism and tolerance, and putting a human face on a largely misunderstood country.

The “wrenching” (Rachel Maddow, The Rachel Maddow Show) first book by acclaimed journalist Michael Hastings (1980-2013), whose unflinching Rolling Stone article “Runaway General” ended the military career of General Stanley A. McChrystal. At age twenty-five, Michael Hastings arrived in Baghdad to cover the war in Iraq for Newsweek. He had at his disposal a little Hemingway romanticism and all the apparatus of a twenty-first-century reporter -- cell phones, high-speed Internet access, digital video cameras, fixers, drivers, guards, translators. In startling detail, he describes the chaos, the violence, the never-ending threats of bomb and mortar attacks, the front lines that can be a half mile from the Green Zone, that can be anywhere. This is a new kind of war: private security companies follow their own rules or lack thereof; soldiers in combat get instant messages from their girlfriends and families; members of the Louisiana National Guard watch Katrina's decimation of their city on a TV in the barracks. Back in New York, Hastings had fallen in love with Andi Parhamovich, a young idealist who worked for Air America. A year into their courtship, Andi followed Michael to Iraq, taking a job with the National Democratic Institute. Their war-zone romance is another window into life in Baghdad. They call each other pet names; they make plans for the future; they fight, usually because each is fearful for the other's safety; and they try to figure out how to get together, when it means putting bodyguards and drivers in jeopardy.Then Andi goes on a dangerous mission for her new employer -- a meeting at the Iraqi Islamic Party headquarters that ends in catastrophe. Searing, unflinching, and revelatory, I Lost My Love in Baghdad is both a raw, brave, brilliantly observed account of the war and a heartbreaking story of one life lost to it.

Between Two Rivers is an honest, funny and moving memoir of Baghdad life from the perspective of a young woman from England, transplanted into another culture by love and family. Dorothy is eighteen when she meets a dark, mysterious stranger at a dance in Portsmouth. Zane is a student from Iraq studying engineering. Almost before she realises, they are married, her husband has finished his course and Dorothy has a three month old daughter called Summer. They borrow a Mercedes from Zane's brother in Germany and begin the drive to Baghdad. Zane doesn't have a licence or insurance for the car and Dorothy doesn't have a visa for Iraq. Zane has only just told his family he is married. They arrive in Baghdad to live with his parents, sisters and brothers in a house in the suburbs. Zane has to find a job in a country where everything is changing. Dorothy has to learn Arabic and help entertain a stream of visitors, all eager to meet the imported new bride. She is soon pregnant again. Life in in the east is not going to be as she expected, letters take weeks to arrive from home and her mother is convinced she is never going to see her daughter again... The book follows twenty years of love, adjustment and adventure for Dorothy Al Khafaji.

"Walk barefoot and the thorns will hurt you…" —Iraqi-Turkmen proverb A riveting story of hope and despair, of elation and longing, Barefoot in Baghdad takes you to the front lines of a different kind of battle, where the unsung freedom fighters are strong, vibrant—and female. An American aid worker of Arab descent, Manal Omar moves to Iraq to help as many women as she can rebuild their lives. She quickly finds herself drawn into the saga of a people determined to rise from the ashes of war and sanctions and rebuild their lives in the face of crushing chaos. This is a chronicle of Omar's friendships with several Iraqis whose lives are crumbling before her eyes. It is a tale of love, as her relationship with one Iraqi man intensifies in a country in turmoil. And it is the heartrending stories of the women of Iraq, as they grapple with what it means to be female in a homeland you no longer recognize. "Manal Omar captures the complex reality of living and working in war-torn Iraq, a reality that tells the story of love and hope in the midst of bombs and explosions."—Zainab Salbi, founder and CEO of Women for Women International, and author (with Laurie Becklund) of the national bestselling book Between Two Worlds: Escape from Tyranny: Growing Up in the Shadow of Saddam "A fascinating, honest, and inspiring portrait of a women's rights activist in Iraq, struggling to help local women while exploring her own identity. Manal Omar is a skilled guide into Iraq, as she understands the region, speaks Arabic, and wears the veil. At turns funny and tragic, she carries a powerful message for women, and delivers it through beautiful storytelling."—Christina Asquith, author of Sisters in War: A Story of Love, Family and Survival in the New Iraq "At turns funny and tragic…a powerful message for women, [delivered] through beautiful storytelling."—Christina Asquith, author of Sisters in War

Sarah Powell, born and raised in Weyburn, Saskatchewan in 1908, falls in love with an Arab Muslim man when they meet while attending university in the United States in the 1920s. Against her parents' wishes, Sarah marries Dr. Mohammed Fadhel al-Jamali and moves to Baghdad. The couple have three sons. The eldest son becomes gravely ill and suffers brain damage from encephalitis and his mental development is arrested at age five. Sarah struggles to cope with finding ways to help her son, balance her own career as Head of English at the university of Baghdad with raising a family and supporting her husband in his ever growing career as Prime Minister of Iraq. A kind and progressive-thinking man who was ahead of his times, Dr. Jamali faces a military coup d'etat in 1958 that results in riots, murder and imprisonment. It is a true story of love, devotion, courage and "grit" of a Prairie Girl who endures great challenges in life while living in Baghdad.

Lieutenant Colonel Jay Kopelman won the hearts of readers everywhere with his moving story of adopting an abandoned puppy named Lava from a hellish corner of Iraq. He opened the door for other soldiers to bring dogs home, and in From Baghdad to America, Kopelman once again leads the pack with his observations on the emotional repercussions of war. Here, for the first time, Kopelman holds nothing back as he responds to the question, “Why did you save a dog instead of a person?” The answer reveals much about his inner demons—and about the bigger picture of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He talks about what it’s like to return to the States and examines the shocking statistics to come out of Iraq: Depression, suicide, alcohol abuse, and broken relationships are at record highs for the men and women who serve there. Kopelman credits Lava with helping him to endure combat and the pain of war, as well as helping him deal with the surprising difficulties of returning to everyday life. Civilians have a hard time understanding what being a Marine means, and the adjustment to living among them is hard for these soldiers. This book attempts to shed light on that for all readers.

In Farewell, Babylon, Naim Kattan takes readers into the heart of exotic mid-19th-century Baghdad's then-teeming Jewish community. Jews had lived in Iraq for 25 centuries, long before the time of Christ or Muhammad, but anti-Semitism and nationalism were on the rise. In this beautifully written memoir, a young boy comes of age and describes his discoveries -- of work, literature, patriotism, the joys of lazy Sundays swimming in the Tigris. He also talks eloquently of his greatest discovery: women and love. This is a story of roots and exile, of thirst for life and life's experiences. However, more than that it is a tribute to a lost world, an ancient Eastern city in which Iraq's Kurds, Bedouins, Sunnis, Shiites, Chaldeans, Catholics, and Jews all lived together in a rough, rewarding sort of harmony.

Two people, one city, different times; connected by a memoir. Can love exist in a city destined for decades of misery? Adnan leads a weary existence as a bookshop owner in modern-day, war-torn Baghdad, where bombings, corruption and assault are everyday occurrences and the struggle to survive has suffocated the joy out of life for most. But when he begins to clean out his bookshop of forty years to leave his city in search of somewhere safer, he comes across the story of Ali, the Gardener of Baghdad, Adnan rediscovers through a memoir handwritten by the gardener decades ago that beauty, love and hope can still exist, even in the darkest corners of the world.