This is the story of Azar Nafisi's dream and of the nightmare that made it come true. For two years before she left Iran in 1997, Nafisi gathered seven young women at her house every Thursday morning to read and discuss forbidden works of Western literature. They were all former students whom she had taught at university. They were unaccustomed to being asked to speak their minds, but soon they began to open up and to speak more freely, not only about...

The best-selling author of Reading Lolita in Tehran presents an impassioned tribute to the importance of fiction to democracy that blends memoir with close readings of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Babbitt and The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. "A passionate hymn to the power of fiction to change people's lives, by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Reading Lolita in Tehran. Ten years ago, Azar Nafisi electrified readers with her million-copy...

Readings of excerpts from and critical analysis of Zora Neale Hurston's Their eyes were watching God, a novel about an independent and articulate black woman named Janie Crawford who sets out to be her own person in the 1930s.

Readings of excerpts from and critical analysis of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, a novel about a future American society that embraces hedonism and bans critical thought through reading.