Rating: 
Summary: Trade in your camel for a Toyota.
Review: ...The author goes to stay in Saudi Arabia with her husband who has been hired as a doctor in the Kings new hospital. While there, and under the guise of a male nom de plume, she smuggles out written stories about some of the incredible changes that are going on as these Bedouin tribes find themselves front and center in the worlds oil market. This is a well-written, fact filled book that reads like a good novel with humor and intrigue. I highly recommend it for those who would like to try something in the non-fiction genre. Kelsana 5/30/01
Rating: 
Summary: Not so updated, is it?
Review: Actually, as a Western woman, living in Saudi Arabia for the past year, I found the book very interesting and well-balanced. It largely fits with many of my own perceptions of the country, and provided a very clear historical overview of the time between the old boom of the early seventies and the beginnings of political upheaval of the mid-eighties. HOWEVER, although calling itself an "updated version" -- with this stamped on the cover of the book -- there is little updating apart from the 3 1/2 page Introduction and the 11 page Afterword. I was so disappointed, for example, in the chapter on The World Creeps Closer to find NO updating, at all, as this book was written during the Iran - Iraq war. In fact, it jars the reader, because of this. The use of present tense in the chapters discussing things 15 years previous to the 2002 publication date is confusing, at best, and misleading at worst. I don't think the few pages tacked on at the beginning and the end, make up for this, unfortunately. It seems to be cashing in on the 9/11 tragedy, with minimal effort on the part of the author and/or editors. Very disappointing, that!
Rating: 
Summary: Not worth your time
Review: As someone who has lived in Saudi Arabia, I find Mackey's book highly innacurate and misrepresented of the Saudi people, which is probably based on her perceptions of living in a confined compound and not intimately familiar with Arabic. It is unfortunate, MacKey did not evolve her book more around interviews with women, of which she probably had unique access. There are far better books recently published on Saudi Arabia to read, especially if one seeks to understand the Saudi relationship to 9/11: These include "The Kingdom: Arabia and the House of Sa'Ud", by Robert Lacey, "Oil Monarchies: Domestic and Security Challenges in the Arab Gulf States", by Gregory Gause, and by far the definitive book on Saudi Arabian culture "Saudi Arabia and the Politics of Dissent", by Mamoun Fandy.
Rating:
Summary: Better than book on Iraq
Review: I had read this one before I read the author's book on Iraq and it is the best of the two, but still I felt the author was giving out second hand information. She lived so briefly in the kingdom and did not even live in a native setting, so I do not believe she is a person who needs to be writing about the Saudis. She is assuming to be an expert when in reality, that is rather a joke. I think of this book as giving me a chance to be an outsider peeking in, for about five minutes. There are plenty of good books out there on the Middle East, but unfortunately, none are written by this author. She should find a new career.
Rating:
Summary: Not accurate, not worth your time.
Review: I picked up this book a while ago. After living in Saudi for about 12 years I was curious to see how a western author would describe Saudi. My conclusion after reading it is that the book is full of inaccuracies and generalizations. Instead I'd recommned several other books like The Kingdom: Arabia and the House of Sa'Ud, by Robert Lacey, Oil Monarchies: Domestic and Security Challenges in the Arab Gulf States, by Gregory Gause, and the best book I've seen written about Saudi that shows some of the cultural nuances of the country: Saudi Arabia and the Politics of Dissent, by Mamoun Fandy.
Rating: 
Summary: Investigative journalism at its best
Review: I started to read this fat paperback, written in 1987, and found that a week and a half later, I had finished it. I don't remember ever having gone through a large book that fast.
She starts her book with "I am Michael Collins. I am Justin Coe. I am Sandra Mackey. Behind my male pseudonyms of Collins and Coe, I spent four years as an underground journalist in Saudi Arabia." Her book is investigative journalism at its best.
Ira Pilgrim (...)
Rating:
Summary: Not so updated, is it?
Review: In 1970, Iraq was allowing women to fly fighter planes. Iran was preparing to "create a second America" in just a few years. Nasser was still guiding Egypt. And Saudi Arabia had virtually no paved roads, one rickety railroad, one ancient international airport, and so little port capacity that the few supermarkets in the country couldn't be stocked. By 1978, virtually every Saudi had a car, a new home, a farm, or whatever they wanted. Riyadh had a Saks store and toilet attendants gave people Chanel No. 5 to wash their hands with. Sandra Mackey details the upheaval of the late 1970s and early 1980s from the perspective of a female foreign journalist living in fear that the government would find out what she was doing. Now that Saudis are constantly accused of Xenophobia, this book gives an important glimpse into the treatment of Westerners (and all foreigners) in Saudi Arabia during the oil boom. It is not a tell-all insider's book, but rather an interesting description of how much (little?) an American women was able to penetrate the secrecy of Saudi life. [The book itself was written in 1987 and has not been updated, with good reason. The Saudi government would imprison Sandra Mackey if she ever tried to return there.]
Rating:
Summary: fascinating look at life in Saudi Arabia
Review: In 1970, Iraq was allowing women to fly fighter planes. Iran was preparing to "create a second America" in just a few years. Nasser was still guiding Egypt. And Saudi Arabia had virtually no paved roads, one rickety railroad, one ancient international airport, and so little port capacity that the few supermarkets in the country couldn't be stocked. By 1978, virtually every Saudi had a car, a new home, a farm, or whatever they wanted. Riyadh had a Saks store and toilet attendants gave people Chanel No. 5 to wash their hands with. Sandra Mackey details the upheaval of the late 1970s and early 1980s from the perspective of a female foreign journalist living in fear that the government would find out what she was doing. Now that Saudis are constantly accused of Xenophobia, this book gives an important glimpse into the treatment of Westerners (and all foreigners) in Saudi Arabia during the oil boom. It is not a tell-all insider's book, but rather an interesting description of how much (little?) an American women was able to penetrate the secrecy of Saudi life. [The book itself was written in 1987 and has not been updated, with good reason. The Saudi government would imprison Sandra Mackey if she ever tried to return there.]
Rating:
Summary: Very Poor Quality
Review: Just two points to make:
1. From a literary point of view, this book is written with an extremely poor taste. I find it hard to believe this is written by someone claiming to be a journalist. Read a few pages and you'll see what I mean.
2. After reading the book, I have the feeling that the author is like someone who writes about a family just after peeping into the home a number of times. Many parts of the book were written without her first-hand experience, but rather, she drew observations or conclusions from what she *guessed* or were *told* by someone (and many a time it's a friend who told her what that friend was told by someone else).
Opened the book with interest, ended with the feeling the author just wanted to capitalize on the very limited *direct* experiences she actually had in Saudi Arabia. And she seemed to think she's very unique in being able to "observe" this country and its people.
Back to the first point: If someone wants to know what a bad literary taste is, then this book is one of my first recommendations.
Rating:
Summary: Don't Waste your $ or your time
Review: Since 9/11 I have read everything I could read on the Middle East, and Saudi Arabia, in particular. I was thrilled when I saw this book. I was disappointed from page one. In my opinion, this writer did not spend enough time in the country to get a handle on it--a few years only--what I call parachute journalism--also, she writes that she lived closed in a Western compound. This is very limiting for a writer. The writing shows it. I felt I was reading what she had been told or had "heard." I may be wrong, and if so, apologies. There are plenty of other great books out there about Saudi Arabia. As a reader of many books about the Middle East, I must tell the painful truth. In my opinion, this is not a book to bother with.
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