Rating: 
Summary: Outstanding
Review: I found this to be a wonderfully written and totally absorbing work, well worth owning, and a book I will likely return to over and over again. Ms. Nafisi paints a vivid picture of her experiences and is an inspirational and excellent writer. Her prose style is tight and lean, with no wasted words; she is unsparingly candid, and the book is a compelling read. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Dreaming of the Ideal World Through Literature in Iran
Review: If for no other reason, author Azar Nafisi provides great value with her memoir by adding texture and dimension to her native Iran, a portrayal that goes well beyond what one sees on CNN. Nafisi is adept at showing the sharp ideological and political divisions between Iranians, obliterating the stereotype of a uniformly anti-American, radical Muslim nation. What makes this book a particularly absorbing read is her compelling storytelling skills, not her political reportage. Of course, there are particularly potent accounts of protests and demonstrations, of bombings and the murders of intellectuals, which help to build the overriding context of Iranian history. However, Nafisi focuses most of her book on the day-to-day activities in which the ideology of the Islamic Republic has insinuated itself into the lives of ordinary Iranians. What evolves from her narrative are personal histories and human concerns expressed by Nafisi and her reading circle. Consequently, she highlights an unacknowledged aspect of a war-torn country, which is the motivation to become more creative than ever in finding outlets for their dreams and passions. As Nafisi notes in one memorable anecdote, many Iranians are just as worried about their illegal satellite dishes being confiscated as they are about witnessing shootings in their backyards. She is able to encompass a wide variety of perspectives and experiences, including her own passionate opposition to the Islamic Republic, as well as several in her reading circle who insist with equal fervor the importance and necessity of Islamic ideology and regulations. These types of penetrating observations are what makes Nafisi's book a vital read.
Where the author goes somewhat astray is in her attempts to draw broader conclusions about these activities, specifically her interpretation of the political ramifications of the pent-up humanism of Iran's people. What begins as an intensely personal pursuit-that of reading novels by western authors-for Nafisi and her students takes on political dimensions. Nonetheless, the responses of Nafisi's students to the works of Nabokov, Fitzgerald, James, and Austen provide a remarkable insight into the thoughts of young Iranians who grew up with the specter of Khomeini and his reforms. This book is ultimately a kindred of Ray Bradbury's classic "Fahrenheit 451" and Dai Sijie's recent "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress". All three stories revolve around an oppressive society that has sealed itself off from literature and how someone recognizes these works of art as the change agents they are. But I actually recommend reading another book, Kenneth Pollack's "The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and America", after reading Nafisi's book in order to get a complete landscape of the Iranian people and culture.
Rating: 
Summary: Not a book for everyone...
Review: It is not that I disliked the book as much as it did not meet my expectations. This is NOT a book about a book club, which is what my book club wanted. I belong to a book club for mom's-- none of us had the kind of time it required to get through the books in six weeks' time.... and we are a group of women who happens to often read two books in that same timeframe.
This is also not a book for the casual reader, as I am. I have not read, nor will ever have the time to read, all of the books that the author discusses in her book. Her "book reports" within her novel are distracting, confusing, and tedious. I was excited initially to learn more about a new culture, as I know very little about Iran, and the struggles of its women. I am not sure I feel more enlightened after having read the book.
I would recommend this book to those with the time, background, and love of classic literature. Other than that, don't waste your time!
Rating:
Summary: Erudite reading
Review: Our book club selected this book to read. It was slow, ponderous, and not about a book club. When I sold my copy to the local used book store, even the clerk groaned and said he liked the first few pages but after that, it was way too boring and slow for him. Although this may be fine for the serious student or scholar, it is not a book for the casual reader.
Rating: 
Summary: Not your average book club
Review: Talk about a zinger of a book club! The genesis of Reading Lolita in Tehran is a book club gathered into the home of Asar Nafisi, after she was expelled from university for refusing hijab. Many of the young women participating in the book club have also suffered under the repressive regime, some in jail, others in 'family cloisters,' although an interesting minority are religiously conservative. Through this extraordinary group of women who gathered to discuss forbidden works of Western literature, we learn about the lives of women in Iran and how exposure to literature can lead to rebirth.
A book that defies genre, refuses to be categorized, Reading Lolita works as literature, memoir, history, anthropology, and philosophy. Highest recommendation for this beautiful and thought-provoking meld of life with literature.
Rating:
Summary: A compelling and sympathetic book.
Review: The book is unique in that it is a memoir and a commentary on literary works. It is about the writer's life in Tehran, during the eighties and the nineties and interspersed in her memoir are her comments on western literature and authors such as Nabokov, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James and Jane Austen. I believe the writer was trying to let the reader see a link between fiction and reality.
The first few pages led me to believe that the book was going to be about the members of the secret book discussion group which met at the writer's house for two years. The theme of the writer's English literature classes was the relation between fiction and reality.
I was fascinated by the writer's experiences: teaching western literature during a time when anything western was labeled indecent and decadent, surviving the eight year war between Iraq and Iran and deciding to migrate to United States. The book opened my eyes about the strength and courage of Middle Eastern women and in particular, Iranian women.
Nafisi painted a picture of religion being used as an instrument of power that intruded in the personal lives of Iranians after the departure of the Shah. There was an example of some young ladies being reprimanded for eating apples too seductively. She painted a clear picture of chaos in education at the university level where leftists and Islamists frequently clashed on campus reflecting the drama and chaos in the Iranian society where the leftists, Islamists and Monarchists battled each other.
Ultimately, this is a well-written and wonderful book. Not only is it about survival of the human spirit, it's a book that celebrate many passions, reading among them. Pick up a copy! Another very different, but highly enjoyable recent Amazon purchase I enjoyed was The Losers Club by Richard Perez.
Rating:
Summary: excellent read
Review: this is an amazing book. it is a little academic at times, but Nafisi is like one of those english professors who makes you change the way you think, so the analysis she brings into the book is not overpowering. Moreover, it informs her life. The book is subtitled "A memoir in books" and indeed she uses different novels to elucidate and comment on her life. I especially enjoyed reading her analysis of Gatsby and how it relates to life in Iran. Furthermore, there is a sense of immediacy to this book, which forces you to read it without stopping. Even though we know the end, that Nafisi will do well and move to America and enjoy more freedom, we can't help but be swept up in the motion of life in Iran, that discontinuous, harsh, brazen life she so (aptly ?) describes. More than a story about a book club (which is the impression one gets from the cover) it is in fact a detailed account of the Islamic Revolution told from the eyes of the intelligentsia. OVerall it's an excellent book and provocative enough that it might make you appreciate literature more...
Rating:
Summary: Through tears and laughter
Review: Through tears and laughter comes a book that will take you through the life of Ms. Nafisi. A strong determined woman set out to beat the odds of her life and the place of her birth. This book is a strong read, filled with emotional ups and downs. This should win a pulizer.
Other books to look for in Non-Fiction:
Middlesex,Nightmares Echo, Running With Scissors
Rating:
Summary: Fabulous! If you love and cherish books, read this now
Review: What a fabulous find! Book-lovers should read this memoir of being female in Iran during and after the Islamic revolution contrasted with ideas and ideals of Western civilization as shown by great authors. Azir Nafisi, an English literature professor, has taken 4 novelists (Nabokov, Fitzgerald, James, and Austen) and shown how the ideals written about in their novels espouse those desired by her and some of her female students in authoritarian Iran. The ability to show and feel love, freedom, imagination, and passion espoused in great novels can only be dreamed by the women portrayed in this book. They gather to study forbidden books, and to find words and outlets for the feelings of inadequacy, fear, loss, and longing in their hearts fostered by a government dismissive (and fearful) of women.In addition to the internal struggles bravely portrayed, this book gives a fabulous cultural picture of life in Iran during and after the revolution. Beyond the political atmosphere, I felt the love Nafisi has for her native country and the people she left behind there.
Rating: 
Summary: Decent, but lacking.
Review: When I was assigned to read "Reading Lolita in Tehran" for one of my discussions classes, I was under the impression that it would be a profound piece. Perhaps it would be an inspiring story for women, minorities, and other oppressed folks. But on account of my being an American white male, I guess I'll never know. It's not that I'm chauvinistic, coldhearted, or lacking of empathy, but this book really didn't do much for me. While the characters were deeply involving, and the emotions high and clear, there was just too much distance for me to truly relate. Chronicling the book-club meetings of a group of Iranian intellectual women, this narrative looks at life through the author's eyes, seeing her students in a light unlike the world can ever see them. Through their discussions of great classics, such as Pride and Prejudice, Lolita, and The Great Gatsby, they gain a new perspective for life, and a new, strong bond to each other in their trying lives. Despite the depth and extreme amount of potential this book could have had, I found that even shallow, yet important, things such as style and approach really distracted from the focus. Lack of direct dialogue in the text forced it away, making the story more distant, while certain semi-direct quotes were ambiguously present in a manner which may as well have made them indirect dialogues. I'm quite sure that the author had her reasons in writing the book in this manner. Obviously, writing a memoir of events a good fifteen years removed is not an easy task, and each conversation could not have been remembered perfectly to produce genuine dialogues. Add to this that many of the details surrounding the characters have been rearranged, jumbled, and negotiated for reasons of confidentiality and of course you can't expect perfect dialogues. Additionally, a chronological hodge-podge and a leap-frogging story line was equally distracting from the story. While the book on the whole seemed to follow a more or less linear timescale, the book-meetings in the story were interspersed with personal storylines and memories that fit, but somehow were lacking in direction. All in all it was a decent book, with a decent message, at a decently understandable level. But in my opinion it could've been a whole lot better.
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