There was little rhyme nor reason to my book buying before moving to the Middle East. My mind and reading were still rather engaged with Sudan, and so I tended to pick up whatever I spotted in second hand book shops - mostly the Oxfam in Crouch End. So my little bookshelf in my friend's apartment is filled with the following books:
The Siege by Conor Cruise O'Brien
Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948 by Tanya Reinhart
Israel and Palestine by Bernard Wasserstein
What Went Wrong by Bernard Lewis
These seem rather inadequate. And the holes are obvious. So what should I be reading? What are the best books to help me get up to speed on the Isreali-Palestinian conflict and the simmering tensions across the Middle East?
I really enjoyed Patrick Tyler's recent book on the history of US involvement in the region, from Eisenhower to GWB: 'A World of Trouble'. He gave his list of top 10 'eccentric' Middle East books to The Guardian here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/feb/25/best-books-middle-east