{"title":"Books by Tahir Shah","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780553816808","title":"The Caliph's House","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eLook into the eyes of a jinn and you stare into the depths of your own soul...\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWriter and film-maker Tahir Shah - in his 30s, married, with two small children - was beginning to wilt under brash, cramped, ennervating British city life. Flying in the face of friends' advice, he longed to fulfil his dream of finding a place bursting with life, colour, history and romance - somewhere far removed from London - in which to raise a family. Childhood memories of holidaying with his parents, and of a grandfather he barely knew, led him to Morocco and to \u003ci\u003e'\u003c\/i\u003eDar Khalifa', a sprawling and, with the exception of its \u003ci\u003ejinns,\u003c\/i\u003e long-abandoned residence on the edge of Casablanca's shanty town that, rumour had it, once belonged to the city's Caliph. \u003cbr\u003eAnd so begins Tahir Shah's gloriously vivid, funny, affectionate and compelling account of how he and his family - aided, abetted and so often hindered by a wonderful cast of larger-than-life local characters: guardians, gardeners, builders, artisans, bureacrats and police (not forgetting the jinns, the spirits that haunt the house) - returned the Caliph's House to its former glory and learned to make this most exotic and alluring of countries their home. \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Caliph's House\u003c\/i\u003e is a story of home-ownership abroad - full of the attendant dramas, anxieties and frustrations - but it is also much more. Woven into the narrative is the author's own journey of self-discovery, of learning about a grandfather he hardly knew, and of coming to love the magical, multi-faceted, contradictory country that is Morocco.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56291839541621,"sku":"9780553816808","price":11.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780553816808_aaf8888e-c36d-4dd6-8c0d-0adcc2fba847.jpg?v=1786013747"},{"product_id":"9780553818765","title":"In Arabian Nights","description":"\u003cp\u003eShortly after the 2005 London bombings, Tahir Shah was thrown into a Pakistani prison on suspicion of spying for Al-Qaeda. What sustained him during his terrifying, weeks-long ordeal were the stories his father told him as a child in Morocco.\u003cbr\u003eInspired by this, on his return to his adopted homeland he embarked on an adventure worthy of the mythical \u003ci\u003eArabian Nights\u003c\/i\u003e, going in search of the stories and storytellers that have nourished this most alluring of countries for centuries. Wandering through the \u003ci\u003emedinas \u003c\/i\u003eof Fez and Marrakech, criss-crossing the Saharan sands and tasting the hospitality of ordinary Moroccans, he collected a treasury of traditional stories recounted by a vivid and eccentric cast of characters: from master masons who work only at night to Sufi wise men who write for soap operas and Tuareg guides addicted to reality TV. Himself a link in the chain of scholars and teachers who have passed such tales down from father to son, mother to daughter, Shah reveals a world and a way of thinking that most visitors to Morocco barely know exist.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56292181410165,"sku":"9780553818765","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780553818765_f561c0ee-4283-4581-b391-3035cd4984a8.jpg?v=1786013792"},{"product_id":"9781912383610","title":"Jinn Hunter","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn oddball and loner, Oliver Quinn was raised by his uncle, the proprietor of Ozymandias \u0026amp; Son - New York's most bizarre emporium of Oriental rugs.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThrough a series of what he believes to be coincidences, Oliver discovers a portal in the basement of the shop - a portal to a magical world called Zonus.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGradually, Oliver comes to understand that anything he had ever considered to be fact is actually fantasy, and that if he's to survive, he'll have to start thinking in an entirely new way.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMost importantly, he grasps that another life form exists - overlaid atop our own - that of the jinns. Far from being the loveable blue genies of Hollywood, they are terrifying in the extreme.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLearning that he's descended from an ancestral line of Jinnslayers, and that the greatest jinn in existence has escaped, Oliver Quinn is enrolled into the Cadenta, the Academy of Jinn Hunters - the legion of defenders who protect us all from rogue jinns.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThrough trials and tribulations, Oliver is made ready to take on the great jinn, Nequissimus, as life as we know it spirals out of control.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWith nothing as it seems, and with every route a potential danger zone, the young Jinnslayer has no choice but to grapple with uncanny, ever-changing versions of reality.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA cross between \u003cem\u003eA Thousand and One Nights \u003c\/em\u003eand\u003cem\u003e Men in Black\u003c\/em\u003e, THE PERPLEXITY is the third extraordinary novel in Tahir Shah's much-acclaimed JINN HUNTER series.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs bizarre as it is compelling, it sucks the reader deep into a realm conjured from the farthest limits of fantastical imagination.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56313150898549,"sku":"9781912383610","price":14.49,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-tahir-shah.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}