Ideal for students and general readers, this single-volume work serves as a ready-reference guide to pop culture in countries in North Africa and the Middle East, covering subjects ranging from the latest young adult book craze in Egypt to the hottest movies in Saudi Arabia. Part of the new Pop Culture around the World series, this volume focuses on countries in North Africa and the Middle East, including Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, and more. The book enables students to examine the stars, idols, and fads of other countries and provides them with an understanding of the globalization of pop culture. An introduction provides readers with important contextual information about pop culture in North Africa and the Middle East, such as how the United States has influenced movies, music, and the Internet; how Islamic traditions may clash with certain aspects of pop culture; and how pop culture has come to be over the years. Readers will learn about a breadth of topics, including music, contemporary literature, movies, television and radio, the Internet, sports, video games, and fashion. There are also entries examining topics like key musicians, songs, books, actors and actresses, movies and television shows, popular websites, top athletes, games, and clothing fads and designers, allowing readers to gain a broad understanding of each topic, supported by specific examples. An ideal resource for students, the book provides Further Readings at the end of each entry; sidebars that appear throughout the text, providing additional anecdotal information; appendices of Top Tens that look at the top-10 songs, movies, books, and much more in the region; and a bibliography.

North African Textiles celebrates a living tradition whose dynamism is apparent in the continued flourishing of old techniques and styles, whilst readily adapting to new materials and markets. The authors provide a much needed survey of a neglected subject and offer valuable new insights into the significance of textiles in the understanding of North African cultural tradition as a whole.

Traces a boy's journey across India as he searches for a sacred buffalo bell stolen from his tribe.

Siwa is a remote oasis deep in the heart of the Egyptian desert near the border with Libya. Until an asphalt road was built to the Mediterranean coast in the 1980s, its only links to the outside world were by arduous camel tracks. As a result of this isolation, Siwa developed a unique culture manifested in its crafts of basketry, pottery, and embroidery and in its styles of costume and silverwork. The most visible and celebrated example of this was the silver jewelery that was worn by women in abundance at weddings and other ceremonies. Based on conversations with women and men in the oasis and with reference to old texts, this book describes the jewelery and costume at this highpoint of Siwan culture against the backdrop of its date gardens and springs, social life, and dramatic history. It places the women's jewelery, costume, and embroidery into social perspective, and describes how they were used in ceremonies and everyday life and how they were related to their beliefs and attitudes to the world. The book also describes how, in the second half of the twentieth century, the arrival of the road and of television brought drastic change, and the oasis was exposed to the styles and fashions of the outside world and how the traditional silver ornaments were gradually replaced by gold.

In an expensive London restaurant Julia Lovat receives a gift that will change her life. It appears to be a book of exquisite 17th-century embroidery patterns but on closer examination Julia finds it also contains faint diary entries. In these, Cat Tregenna, an embroideress, tells how she and others were stolen out of a Cornish church in 1625 by Muslim pirates and taken on a brutal voyage to Morocco to be auctioned off as slaves. Captivated by this dramatic discovery, Julia sets off to North Africa to determine the authenticity of the book and to uncover more of Cat’s story. There, in the company of a charismatic Moroccan guide, amid the sultry heat, the spice markets, and exotic ruins, Julia discovers buried secrets. And in Morocco – just as Cat did before her – she loses her heart. Almost 400 years apart, the stories of the two women converge in an extraordinary and haunting manner that will make readers wonder – is history fated to repeat itself?