TEHRAN – New books arrive at the book market and grandstand behind the shiny glasses of the bookstores. Book readers, despite the turbulence in prices and somehow high numbers on price tags, still can’t let go of their habit. Here we will review the recently published books in Iran’s book market; books which are seating in shelves, waiting for reviews and criticisms.

* A review on History of Tractors

“A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian”, bestselling author Marina Lewycka's bestselling debut novel which has sold over one million copies worldwide, tells the story of two sisters named Vera and Nadezhda who must put their usual arguments aside and join forces to save their father from falling for gold-digging Valentia. She is a young beautiful girl and nothing can stand between her and her dream of getting crazy rich. The alliance of sisters to force Valentia out, reveals some family secrets, unveils a 50-year timespan of the darkest era in Europe’s history and takes them back to the days they always preferred forget.

The novel is a family which, using the humor and sarcasm, both iterates the family problems and stops by the historical events of part of Europe.

Marina Lewycka, the writer, was born in October 12, 1946 in a World War II refugee camp in Germany. When she was one year old, her family eventually made it to the UK. This book is her first work which published in 2005 and won the Everyman Wodehouse Prize the same year. It was also among the nominees of Man Booker Prizes and Orange Prize. The first edition of novel published in Persian titled “The History of Tractors in Ukrainian” in softcover, translated by Khatereh Kord Karimi in 312 pages by Borj Publications Co.

* The life of Isfahanian merchant and combatant

“A Telegram Message to the Shah” by Roya Omrani is a book about the life of Ala-alDin Mir Mohammad Sadeghi will soon be published by Soureh-Mehr Publications. Sadeghi is an Iranian merchant and a member of the Islamic Coalition Party who has a background of revolutionary activities during the Islamic Revolution era.

The storyline of the book begins with the assassination of Hasan Ali Mansour by revolutionary combatants. The word “telegram message” in book’s title is interesting because indicates how revolutionaries used telegram to deliver their messages to the Shah’s court. Another attractive part of the story is the confrontations of the narrator and people with “Todays’ Man” newspaper which used to be published in that era under Mohammad Masoud’s editorship.

This short narrative contains important information about the days of battle against Shah’s regime and attractively portraits the atmosphere of fighting days in Bazaar. There have been indications to historical events of that era in other works as well, but Sadeghi approaches those events from a different angel and focuses on the environment of the revolution among the merchants and businessmen in Bazaar. Readers also get to know the opinion of religious community. Writer, in between some adventurous highs and lows, explains how revolutionaries reacted to the activities which they deemed contrary to the religion and always tried to keep the light of ethics alive in the society.

The Isfahanian accent of the narrator is well maintained in the literature of the book in makes the dialogues of the characters of the story even more pleasant.

Ala-alDin Mir Mohammad Sadeghi, one of the most renowned and noble merchants of Iran, was born in 1932 in Isfahan. He is considered as one of the traditional figures of Iran’s economy who had an active role in economics, politics, culture, education, and charity activities during the last four decades.

* The Iranian query

Ahmad Reza Nowrouzi’s new book titled “Two Queries: on Contemporary Man and Emerging Cults” introduced to the market by Naghd-e-Farhang Publications Co. The book contains two separate but interconnected parts, one criticizes/analyzes the contemporary man and other, emerging cults and mysticism. You can count this book as an interdisciplinary study in fields of philosophy and arts.

The first chapter of the book includes post-modernist definitions and interpretations of contemporary man which expresses new existential aspects of man in post-modern era. It also addresses quiddity and quality of “being contemporary”. Nouri, in this chapter, argues that “being contemporary” is an existential status, not a historical situation.

In the second chapter of the book, titled “mysticism in storm”, Nouri investigates pseudo-spiritual thoughts and emerging cults in modern era. He uses philosophical interpretation techniques to extract the contradictory and inconsistent aspects of mysticism and spirituality. The writer believes that this chapter emerges as questioner which asks questions about certain and uncertain sets of beliefs which undoubtedly stumble in turbulence of doubt and skepticism. On his way, Nouri has tried to bring up analytical and fundamental questions regarding the essence of every definitive subject and to challenge the pseudo-spiritual reflections.

Ahmad Reza Nowrouzi has previously published several research works in various areas including war photography (Cold Fire), The History of Contemporary Painting in Iran (Dream and Fiction) and etc. He has also had a close collaboration with two different UN World Peace projects, namely Music and Performance over the past year.