Books With Flair

A delightful, well-written, and vastly informative ethnographic study, this is an account of Fernea's two-year stay in a tiny rural village in Iraq, where she assumed the dress and sheltered life of a harem woman. This volume gives a unique insight into a part of the Midddle Eastern life seldom seen by the West. "A most enjoyable book abouut [Muslim women]--simple, dignified, human, colorful, sad and humble as the life they lead." --Muhsin Mahdi, Jewett Professor of Arabic Literature, Harvard Unversity.

A delightful, well-written, and vastly informative ethnographic study, this is an account of Fernea's two-year stay in a tiny rural village in Iraq, where she assumed the dress and sheltered life of a harem woman.

One of the most widely used ethnographies published in the last twenty years, this Margaret Mead Award winner has been used as required reading at more than 600 colleges and universities. This personal account by a biocultural anthropologist illuminates not-soon-forgotten messages involving the sobering aspects of fieldwork among malnourished children in West Africa. With nutritional anthropology at its core, Dancing Skeletons presents informal, engaging, and oftentimes dramatic stories that relate the author’s experiences conducting research on infant feeding and health in Mali. Through fascinating vignettes and honest, vivid descriptions, Dettwyler explores such diverse topics as ethnocentrism, culture shock, population control, breastfeeding, child care, the meaning of disability and child death in different cultures, female circumcision, women’s roles in patrilineal societies, the dangers of fieldwork, and facing emotionally draining realities. Readers will laugh and cry as they meet the author’s friends and informants, follow her through a series of encounters with both peri-urban and rural Bambara culture, and struggle with her as she attempts to reconcile her very different roles as objective ethnographer, subjective friend, and mother in the field. The 20th Anniversary Edition includes a 13-page “Q&A with the Author” in which Dettwyler responds to typical questions she has received individually from students who have been assigned Dancing Skeletons as well as audience questions at lectures on various campuses. The new 23-page “Update on Mali, 2013” chapter is a factual update about economic and health conditions in Mali as well as a brief summary of the recent political unrest.

She was the hired help. He was a powerful ruler! Andrea risked it all, and her life was devastated by her decisions. When the dust settled, Andi was left lonely, heartbroken and…pregnant! But she pulled herself together. Pregnancy and giving birth were terrifying to go through alone, but Andi was finally pulling herself through this challenging time in her life. And then he upended her world once again! Sheik Zahir had left the lovely Andi that morning, but he’d never meant to lose her forever! It had taken ten months to find her. By that point, it was critical that he save her from ruthless people who would hurt her in order to get to him. That’s when he discovered that she wasn’t alone – that she held his infant daughter in her arms! Can Zahir and Andi maneuver through this unexpected twist in their relationship? Or is she too hurt about his departure months ago to ever trust him again? This is the 3rd story in the Scandalous Sheiks series. I hope you enjoy this one as much as the previous two!

This is a reflexive account of an American woman and her familys unpredictable journey through the private and public worlds of a traditional Muslim city in the process of change. As a Western stranger in Marrakech, Fernea was met with suspicion and hostility. The story of the slow growth of trust and acceptance between the author and her Moroccan neighbors involves the reader in everyday activities, weddings, funerals, and womens rituals. Both the author and her friends are changed by the encounters that she describes. A Street in Marrakech is a crosscultural adventure, ethnographically sound, and written in an accessible style.

A jaw-dropping story of how a girl from the suburbs ends up in a prince's harem, and emerges from the secret Xanadu both richer and wiser At eighteen, Jillian Lauren was an NYU theater school dropout with a tip about an upcoming audition. The "casting director" told her that a rich businessman in Singapore would pay pretty American girls $20,000 if they stayed for two weeks to spice up his parties. Soon, Jillian was on a plane to Borneo, where she would spend the next eighteen months in the harem of Prince Jefri Bolkiah, youngest brother of the Sultan of Brunei, leaving behind her gritty East Village apartment for a palace with rugs laced with gold and trading her band of artist friends for a coterie of backstabbing beauties. More than just a sexy read set in an exotic land, Some Girls is also the story of how a rebellious teen found herself-and the courage to meet her birth mother and eventually adopt a baby boy.

Spurned and publicly humiliated by the father of her child, Princess Emmeline d'Arcy has no ring, no wedding date and no legitimacy for her unborn baby. And the last straw? Having to trade in her gilded lifestyle and pretend to be her twin sister, otherwise known as Sheikh Makin Al-Koury's personal assistant. Accustomed to being waited on hand and foot, Emmeline finds herself having to jump to the click of her boss's skillful fingers—day and night! But once the sheikh uncovers her shameful past, will his touch be nothing but a scorching memory?

Coming soon! The Sheikh's Christmas Conquest by Sharon Kendrick will be available Oct 20, 2015.

Investigates the emerging, new sexual culture of Iranian youth, in which sexuality represents freedom and engaging in sex can be considered political activism.