Major Hassan Granmayeh was a Fighter Pilot in the Iranian Air Force, piloted the F-5 and F-4 aircrafts during his service times. Had two major accidents with F-5 aircraft, miraculously survived both accidents. Served The Shah’s regime for fifteen years and six months followed by ten months in the revolution of 1979. For his safety reason escaped the Iran with his family, came to the United States on December 1982. Due to his mother’s illness in Iran, decided to go back to Iran, to visit his mother on her death-bed. The government of Iran confiscated his passport banned him to exit the country, until he made a risky decision to escape the Iran for the last time.

This is a gripping, page-turning memoir of a US-trained Iranian fighter pilot who flew in the Shah of Iran’s and the Ayatollah Khomeini’s air force. Sharifirad was shot down in the Iraqi-Iranian war in the early 1990s. Saved by a group of local Kurds, he returned to Iran where he became a national hero. A movie, called Eagles, based on his rescue, was made in Iran in 1984. Sharifirad’s story was also published in Iran in a book called Crash on the Fortieth Mission. Shortly after his return to Iran, the Ayatollah sent him to Pakistan as military attaché. When he returned toTeheran, he was accused of being a CIA spy and was imprisoned, interrogated, and tortured. Sharifirad served a prison term and upon his release, despite constant surveillance, managed to smuggle his family out of the country. Eventually, he too managed a harrowing escape from Iran via Turkey to Canada, where he now lives with his family in Vancouver. The book also provides an absorbing historical and cultural backdrop to Iran.

With the sound of bursting metal, the International Space Station becomes a tumbling, powerless hulk and a tomb for its crew. As NASA prepares the Space Shuttle Endeavour in a desperate attempt to rescue the surviving astronauts, the question remains; was the cataclysm the result of a random collision with a piece of space junk, or a deliberate attempt to render it helpless? With the crime scene orbiting the planet some five hundred kilometers up, the truth may be found in a mathematical model and the terrorist who possesses it-a game of calculations that could cripple western civilization and topple America. As the countdown continues, Jake McSorley, former veteran and defense marketeer now living off the spoils of his family's aerospace company, becomes convinced that the million-pound Space Station has been the victim of sabotage. In six days the Station will cross paths with a dead rocket body, risking a collision that could create a massive cloud of speeding debris sweeping through space, grinding up the satellite systems the modern world has come to depend upon and eviscerating America's ability to defend itself. Science fiction or science fact-the reality lies in a Cold War test of a space warfare system hidden in a software game. Jake, whose father's company has been helping NASA put astronauts into space for more than forty years, is no scientist, but thanks to a run-in with an IED in Afghanistan he has a sixth sense when it comes to knowing when things aren't what they appear. And with the woman he loves about to ride Endeavour on its rescue mission to the Station, the countdown is ticking to discover the truth. But, learning what was done is far less dangerous than knowing who did it, and as Jake pursues the mystery the conspirators begin methodically and gruesomely cleaning up after themselves. Pursued by killers, he crosses the law and soon the FBI is after him, too, as he races to learn the secret of the Cascade--a secret that hides a contract with terrorists and a horrifying deception to start a war without rules, without restraints and without remorse. For Jake to stop them he must sacrifice everything that's left of his life, including the crew of Endeavour and the woman he has sacrificed everything for. The story is a fast-paced, hi-tech, action-adventure thriller with geopolitical intrigue in the spirit of Clancy, Cussler, Flynn, and Follett, taking the reader on a chase from space coast to space coast, with stops in the mountains of Pakistan and the border region with Afghanistan, and finally into orbit.

In 1975, at the age of twenty-three, Farideh Goldin left Iran in search of her imagined America. She sought an escape from the suffocation she felt under the cultural rules of her country and the future her family had envisioned for her. While she settled uneasily into American life, the political unrest in Iran intensified and in February of 1979, Farideh’s family was forced to flee Iran on the last El-Al flights to Tel Aviv. They arrived in Israel as refugees, having left everything behind including the only home Farideh’s father had ever known. Baba, as Farideh called her father, was a well-respected son of the chief rabbi and dayan of the Jews of Shiraz. During his last visit to the United States in 2006, he handed Farideh his memoir that chronicled the years of his life after exile: the confiscation of his passport while he attempted to return to Iran for his belongings, the resulting years of loneliness as he struggled against a hostile bureaucracy to return to his wife and family in Israel, and the eventual loss of the poultry farm that had supported his family. Farideh translated her father’s memoir along with other documents she found in a briefcase after his death. Leaving Iran knits together her father’s story of dislocation and loss with her own experience as an Iranian Jew in a newly adopted home. As an intimate portrait of displacement and the construction of identity, as a story of family loyalty and cultural memory, Leaving Iran is an important addition to a growing body of Iranian–American narratives.

From Simon & Schuster, The Shah's Last Ride is William Shawcross' unforgettable work of exile and American foreign policy. The acclaimed author of Sideshow, The Shah's Last Ride captures the behind-the-scenes drama of the Shah of Iran's strange journey into exile—and its crucial impact on American foreign policy and the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini.

Previous edition: published as by Patricia L. Baker and Hilary Smith. 2009.

About this book Now into its fifth edition, Bradt's Iran continues to provide the most detailed background, history and cultural information available when visiting this 'Jewel of Central Asia'. This new edition has been thoroughly reviewed to provide all the latest information, from updated history and cultural developments to security, language and hotel prices, plus expanded practical information for independent travellers. Food and arts, rugs and handicrafts are all covered, plus new details of skiing in Iran and recommended Iranian movies. For outdoor enthusiasts, swimming and desert and eco-tours are also included. With new direct flights to Iran now available from Europe, and a warm-hearted and welcoming people eager to meet tourists, visiting this intriguing country has never been easier. Iran's cities are packed with gilded mosques and blue-mosaic shrines built in honour of the country's greatest leaders. Its people are generous and its terrain ranges from the sands of the Persian Gulf to the Alborz Mountains in the north. The expert authors give first-hand descriptions of attractions ranging from the exquisite mosques of Esfahan and the museums and palaces of Tehran to remote, spectacular mountain hikes. New maps and up-to-date information on all the basics - hotels, restaurants, businesses and shops - help you to uncover the mysteries of ancient Persepolis, to enjoy a soak and scrub in a local hamam, or to pick up a pair of giveh slippers or a Persian rug in Kirman's bazaar. Thoroughly updated, this new edition also includes new details of 'Around Tehran', caravanserai, Nishapur, Qaleh Rudkhan and Kurdish villages on the Silk Road Trail, plus new maps of the historic bazaars of Esfahan, Yazd, Kerman and Shiraz. It has been updated by Middle East expert Maria Oleynik, who is fluent in ten languages, including Persian and Arabic.