Leader of Azeri Exclave Recommends His People Read Hemingway and Jack London

Vasif Talibov, supreme assembly chairman of the landlocked Azeri exclave of Nakhchivan, has published a list of books which he believes all citizens should read. As the BBC reports (via Minval.az), the list includes 30 books which include authors from Azeri and medieval Eastern authors as well as some well known Western writers such as Ernest Hemingway and Jack London.

The list also includes a book written by the former Azeribaijan President Heydar Aliyev’s called ‘The appeal of the national leader Heydar Aliyev to the people of Azerbaijan in connection with the new year 2001, a new era and the third millennium’. It also includes, perhaps unsurprisingly, Niccolò Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince’.

The list of books are set to be sent to every school, library and cultural institution in Nakhchivan, though it remains unclear as to whether there will be any checks as to whether people have read them. Talibov hopes that reading these books will help foster patriotism and widen youngsters’ outlook.

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