Having read several books about post-revolution Iran, I would like to talk to an ordinary Iranian citizen to learn "the truth" about today's Iranian culture.

I’m only a quarter of the way done with this book but love it! Too many times, we as westerners, want to go into a country and “fix” things in our own way. It doesn’t work and often ends up quite hurtful and inconsiderate of the culture of the country. Apparently from this book, that is the problem with “Reading Lolita in Tehran” (RLT). The difficulties described in the book were products of a recent revolution and not representative of the thousands of years of culture and love of all literature that Persia was cultivated, curated. I haven’t been to Iran, but studied it in my undergrad. And the difficult approaches the US and others have taken in approaching countries in war or other tenuous situations. Our approach has been to “make them safe for (Western) democracy.” Ha!

Off my political soap box, and back to the book. The author is a professor of Persian literature in the US and I would love to be able to learn more from her of the rich literary history of Iran.

She makes another point that not only is RLT forbidden in Iran, but many people struggle with the actually illegal actions (in most countries) described in the book.

I have always disagreed with Nasifi's interpretation of life in Tehran post Revolution. I disagreed because the people and images she showed did not fit with the people and images I had seen in multiple deployments to the Mideast pre 911. Now I know that my personnel images were more correct than I thought they were. Another disagreement with Nasifi was her subject matter. If I was to choose a Nabokov novel it would not be Lolita. The Luzien Defense is better by a mile. Lolita is really a book that will sell by titillation of American senses and therefor make a pile of money. But I digress.

Jasmine and Stars shows a truer picture of people in Iran and by extension the Mideast. We have poets, bureaucrat, teachers, and the whole panoply of types of people that make up any society. I also discovered some new writers and poets from Persian literature that might be worth exploring. To fully understand our enemies we have to know them well. The best way to know them is to read and digest there literature. By digesting there literature one finds out why they believe the way they do and one can also find that he has been sold a bill of goods that fits a political agenda, but is not truthful or accurate. Rather an agenda that is convenient and uneducated. One of the main problems with our country today, and for many years, we like convenient and simple explanations about people, races, science, economics, etc. The problem is that simple is not necessarily correct and convenient may be a broad brush that shoves the majority in with the minority. Just a thought on our current situation.

If you want a better understanding of how people in Iran actually think, this is a must read.

Jasmine and Stars. A wonderful book opening the doorway into the depth, the quality and the richness of the Iranian life and culture. It delves into Iran's rich history and life in poetry. Poetry being a deep and important part of Iranian history. It delves into its art, its history, and of course, its religions, all of which are so important as to be intimate mates in the everyday lives of every person in Iran. This is a thinking culture surrounded by beauty and the wonder of life and of living. It is a shame the U.S. and Iran re not close friends and allies. The U.S. population would be better for it, if it cared to take the time and the effort to look to and to learn from this country. The two countries were once that way, were at one time friends and allies. Unfortunately, the U.S. betrayed Iran and the Iranian people, which is why we have the situation we have today. This book opened my eyes to much I had not known about the Iranian people. It also gave me more titles of and about Iran to bring into and enrich my life by reading about this country and its people. I hope to meet, in the future, and to make friends with Iranian people currently living in the U.S. Given the opportunity I would feel lucky to be able to visit Iran and share itsfood, philosophy, art and ideas.

Everyone who read Reading Lolita in Tehran/has an interest in Iranian lit should read this book.

Although the scholarly premise intrigued me, I found the writing tedious and the content non-illuminating. Prof. Keshavarz's premise is that "Reading Lolita in Tehran," "The Kite Runner," and a few other novels popular among 20th U.S. readers misrepresent modern Iranian culture and its people. I can accept that as probable, but found that her approach to supporting it rather tedious to read. What support she gave seemed (to me) from a privileged class perspective; many of her examples are from her own family environment, her parents and grandparents. Still, I don't question her argument, partly because of having read other books and having learned from an Iranian friend.

If you read "Reading Lolita in Tehran" and took it to be the whole truth you should read this too, and see another picture of post-revolution Iran.

Sounds interesting! I want to read it since I just read Reading Lolita in Tehran. However, I don't think anything in this book will negate Nafisi's experiences or the truth that she speaks.

Beautifully written. One doesn't have to have read Reading Lolita in Tehran beforehand but it certainly helps. What's more, though, Keshawarz's lyrical, gentle, and powerful writing stands on its own, as does the force of her memories and the complex, riveting emotions behind them. A great collection of anecdotes and thoughts about the real, everyday lives of people in Iran, beyond caricatures.

One wonders if this book would have garnered much interest if it wasn't such an unabashed critique of Nafisi's more popular Reading Lolita in Tehran.

In a way, I do thank Azar Nafisi for writing RLT because if she didn't, Keshavarz would not have had such tantalizing fodder that inspired her to write her book.

I get what Ms. Keshavarz was trying to say. That there is danger in the way Iran and Iranians are being depicted by Nafisi in her book. But even in the reading of RLT, I knew that these men and women were not reflections of the majority. Even I as someone not from Iran, can tell the difference.

So will it be utterly catastrophic that so many RLT readers will form such woefully wrong impressions about Iran and Iranians? Does not the author trust that maybe some of the readers may not be so myopic?

I'm not saying that this book wasn't necessary. Jasmine and Stars is a fine counterbalance to RLT. But in reading the book, I felt as if I'm being chided for wrongfully liking the book RLT and that I had formed ill-conceived notions as to what and who Iran and Iranians really are.

Oh, and by the way, I thought that quote about "standing on shoulders of giants" on page 67, belonged to Isaac Newton. Not Darwin.

I enjoyed and learned from Lolita, can't wait to see what this author says about it.

Thank you to Fatemeh Keshavarz for writing this book! She did a wonderful job not only analyzing and refuting many of the claims laid in Reading Lolita in Tehran, but also introducing the reader to many inspiration, talented, and, sadly unmentioned in the previous book, Iranian figures and people worthy of note. She is on point when she says New Orientalist narratives, including but not limited to Reading Lolita in Tehran, only serve to reinforce in western readers' minds what they already "know" about Iran, the middle eat, and Muslims when in fact these books are often "political commentary with a very personal bent" (21). These New Orientalist books (and movies) often have a native or semi-native insider tone to them and "replicate the totalizing -- and silencing -- tendencies of the old Orientalists by vuritue of erasing, through unnuanced narration, the complexity and richness in the local culture" (3).

Please, if you have read Reading Lolita in Tehran or any of these other New Orientalist narratives, such as the wildly popular books by Khaled Husseini, please read this book as an accompaniment to them. I beseech you to do so. If your entire knowledge of the middle east, of Muslims, of Iran, etc. comes from what you read about in the newspapers (or online) and from these books, if you think you "know" what it's all about, please read this book. And don't just read this book, please read others about these same subjects because, as Keshavarz says, we need to see the elephant as a whole, we need more candles and more light.