A Long Way From Home

P erhaps Ms. Moaveni, a savvy young Iranian-American journalist, has spent too much time working for Time magazine—she has a penchant for snappy but misleading titles. Her previous book, Lipstick Jihad (2005), was not about seductive suicide-bombers but about her own quest for identity during an eventful stay (2000-1) in Iran. The title Honeymoon in Tehran is similarly unhelpful: Moaveni did fall in love, marry and have a baby during her second exploratory journey (2005-7); but she mostly continues her earlier theme of finding herself within the vexing confines of the Islamic Republic and against the splendid backdrop of age-old Persian culture. (In any case, she went to Shiraz and Persepolis for her actual honeymoon, and, as it turned out, was never in any serious danger.)

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