House of Stone
A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East

So much about this book to love. It's only the third book I've ever agreed to blurb. That tells you how much I loved it. My blurb (and I wrote it myself, and meant every word): “I was captivated, instantly, by Anthony Shadid’s lushly evocative prose. Crumbling Ottoman outposts, doomed pashas, and rovin......more

As I read, I found myself falling into the rhythm of this book--the stumbling attempt to rebuild an old house, the current state of Lebanon and surrounding countries, and the history of the Levant and how the open, multicultural area became a political firestorm. I found the history and current info......more

Anthony Shadid was a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and with every page I read of this novel, he deserved this coveted prize. Anthony's great grandfather, Isber, left war-torn Lebanon with his family to live in America, where he could secure their future, "where his children could realize their ambit......more

As we age, our hearts eventually turn to our fathers, and we try to understand those who went before, what they were like, how they faced life, what challenges they overcame, and we gauge whether we measure up to our ancestors. House of Stone chronicles Shadid's return to his roots as he tries to re......more

After a bad patch in his life, Anthony Shadid took a year off to rebuild his grandparents' home in Lebanon. Raised in Oklahoma City, he was more than knowledgeable about the wars and conflicts that had plagued the area, and he wanted to get a sense of its history beyond these travesties, a sense of......more