
Girls of Riyadh
Author: Rajaa Alsanea, Rajaa Alsanea, Marilyn Booth
Narrator: Kate Reading
Unabridged: 8 hr 34 min
Format: Digital Audiobook Download
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Published: 07/05/2007
Categories: Fiction, Women, Literary Fiction

Author: Rajaa Alsanea, Rajaa Alsanea, Marilyn Booth
Narrator: Kate Reading
Unabridged: 8 hr 34 min
Format: Digital Audiobook Download
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Published: 07/05/2007
Categories: Fiction, Women, Literary Fiction
Rajaa Alsanea is the author of the novel Girls of Riyadh, which was long-listed for the International Dublin Literary Award. She grew up in Saudi Arabia as one of six siblings in a family of doctors and dentists. Alsanea received her bachelor’s degree in endodontics from King Saud University in 2005. Translator, author, and scholar, Marilyn Booth has had an interest in Arabic since the age of 12, when she spent a year in Beirut, Lebanon. Since graduating from Harvard-Radcliffe College with a degree in Near Eastern studies, she has had a varied career as a scholar at institutions such as the University of Oxford, St. Antony's College, Brown University, University of Edinburgh, New York University Abu Dhabi, and Magdalen College. In addition to Booth's many credits as a translator for books such as the bestselling Girls of Riyadh, her authored works include Classes of Ladies of Cloistered Spaces: Writing Feminist History Through Biography in Fin-de-Siècle Egypt, May Her Likes Be Multiplied: Biography and Gender Politics in Egypt and Bayram al-Tunisi's Egypt: Social Criticism and Narrative Strategies.Kate Reading is the recipient of three AudioFile Earphones Awards, and has narrated everything from Patricia Cornwell to George Eliot. Her favorite BOT recordings include Like Water for Chocolate, Middlemarch, and Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Times series, which she narrated with her husband, Michael Kramer.
I think the author wrote a true account of life in Saudi Arabia. I am married to a Saudi, and I didn't find anything she wrote about to be in conflict with what I know from my 29 years of marriage, experience in SA, and extended family. Most importantly,her story rings true based on what my children......more
Sex in the City, upper class Saudi society style! An unnamed blogger sends out an email newsletter with episodic stories of four young women's quest for love in Saudi Arabia in the 21st century. Love and dating is foremost, with Islam, gender equality and Saudi society taking a strong second place.......more
When this book first came out, I was living in Saudi Arabia and it caused quite a stir - so much so that it was banned in Kingdom. I was teaching ESL at the time, and the women in my classes were frantic to get their hands on a copy of it. Turns out the enthusiasm they felt was short lived - as in a......more
Girls Of Riyadh Where could i possibly begin? I will begin with the first time I saw it on the "Best Sellers" shelf in one of our local bookshops in Kuwait. The cover attracted me so I grabbed it and read few lines of random pages of the book and ended up liking it but i did not buy it at the time an......more
“Alsanea's wisdom and insight into the female experience seem surreal. She captures the core, universal truths of the complications in finding and holding a life partner. Her characters provide wisdom to each other that are astounding in their accuracy, and Alsanea thus speaks for countless women everywhere.” —Bookreporter.com