This is the book you need if you're visiting Fez. Don't get lost without it! Written by experienced Lonely Planet author Virginia Maxwell and Fez resident and owner of Fez Riads, Helen Ranger, it contains a good map and information on what to see, where to eat and drink and where to shop. The book is divided into three main sections: the ancient medina Fes el-Bali, the Jewish quarter known as the Mellah, and the Ville Nouvelle. There's also information on day trips from Fez.

If you're visiting different parts of Morocco, this 10th edition is perfect. It has been totally revamped and all entries revisited, with new style maps and information. Helen Ranger wrote the following chapters: the Atlantic Coast; the Mediterranean Coast & the Rif, including trekking in the Rif.

This full-colour, pocket-size book gives the best of Marrakech and has a section on traditional riads.

Stun the locals with a few words of Darija, Moroccan Arabic! There are useful cultural tips, extensive food and shopping sections and a pronunciation guide. There are chapters on Berber and French, too.

A quick guide to customs and etiquette.

British author Tahir Shah brought his wife and children to live in Casablanca - here is the tale of the house they bought and renovated and the djinns that had to be exorcised in the process.

Here Tahir Shah continues his adventures in Casablanca and beyond.

Edith Wharton travelled to Morocco in the 1920s as a guest of the Resident General, Lyautey. These are her impressions of the country and the people.

'I was born in a harem in 1940 in Fez, Morocco ...'  So begins Fatima Mernissi in this exotic and rich narrative of a childhood behind the iron gates of a domestic harem.

The Glaoui family from the south of Morocco were supremely powerful. This book tells the tale of their exploits and their ultimate fall from grace. If you're travelling in the Atlas near Marrakech, you can visit the family's ruined kasbah, and in Fez a peek at the Glaoui Palace is worth the trip.

Here Jeffrey Tayler describes his epic trip to follow the Drâa river from source to sea, travelling in nomadic style on foot and camel. Thirst, unexploded mines, restricted military zones and nearby ongoing war is the background, while Tayler travels with characterful guides Hassan and Mbari and a temperamental trio of camels.

This is the moving story of Azeddine, a young medical graduate who began his military service in Western Sahara and was almost immediately captured by the Polisario. He spent 24 years as a prisoner of war.

This book was originally published in German in 1960. Now republished in English with new photographs added to the old, it's a magnificent picture of Fez, which Burckhardt describes as 'A geode of amethyst, brimful of thousands of tightly packed crystals and surrounded by a silver-green rim: this was Fez, the Old City of Fez, in the twilight'. It covers the history of the people and the city.

Peter Mayne lived in the back streets of Marrakech in the 1950s - a very different place in those days. He rented rooms, learned the language, made friends and became embroiled in conspiratorial picnics, hashish-laced dinners and in the enchantments and misunderstandings of the street, with its festivals, love affairs, potions and gossip.

No visit to Fez is complete without at least a cup of coffee at Café Clock. Frequented by musicians, artists and writers, by local residents and tourists (and recently by Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall), Café Clock has a cultural heart that beats to the pulse of the Fez Medina. Inspired by the Clock, Tara Stevens has taken the flavours and magic of Moroccan cooking and reinterpreted it for the modern kitchen.

The rich culture of the Jews of Morocco has been captured in this book of Sephardic cuisine. In the 15th century, the Spanish Inquisition forced a huge wave of Sephardim to immigrate. Many settled in North Africa, especially Morocco. Among other changes, ingredients such as chili peppers, tomatoes, saffron, and orange flower water entered the Sephardim kitchen. Today, however, primarily because of immigration and the demands of modern life, the Sephardic tradition is disappearing. With that in mind, Morse, the author of several other North African cookbooks, and Mamane, whose ancestors fled to Fez during the Inquisition, determined to document the Sephardic contributions before it was too late. Along with recipes such as Passover Fava Bean Soup and Thursday Evening's Butter Couscous, they include holiday menus, Mamane's nostalgic reminiscences of her extended family, and historical background. Danielle Mamane lives in the new city of Fez.

Claudia Roden takes a fascinating look at the cuisines of Morocco, Turkey and Lebanon. Including bits of history, stories and more that 150 recipes, In each recipe, flavors are exquisitely balanced, as in Moroccan classics Chickpea and Lentil Soup and Tagine of Chicken with Preserved Lemons and Olives.

This is the classic by Paul Bowles. The dilemma of the outsider in an alien society, and the gap in understanding between cultures, recurrent themes of Paul Bowles's writings, are dramatized with brutal honesty in this novel set in Fez, during Morocco's 1954 nationalist uprising. Totally relevant to today's political situation in the Middle East and elsewhere, richly descriptive of its setting, and uncompromising in its characterizations, The Spider's House is perhaps Bowles's best, most beautifully subtle novel.

It doesn't matter how difficult life may be in your home country, a whole new set of difficulties waits in the promised land. Most of the novel focuses on Azel, a young Tangier native and a self-described Arab who doesn't like himself. Desperate to escape, Azel agrees to become the object of affection for a wealthy Spaniard named Miguel, who takes him in after a brutal police beating. Leaving behind his family and girlfriend for the good life he's imagined in Spain, he soon learns that daydreams can be misleading—and that the life he's always wanted is causing him, despite his benefactor's best intentions, to self-destruct. Before long, Azel's sister Kenza, a nurse, weds Miguel to gain Spanish citizenship, then falls in love with an expatriate Turk who comes with his own set of problems. This harsh, unsentimental view of the risks and regrets of emigration—as well as the stunning realities of life under Islam law—is a stark, straightforward tale that entrances.

Bookish Salim joins the Moroccan army without enthusiasm and is shocked first to find himself in the midst of an unsuccessful coup against King Hassan II in 1971, then to be imprisoned in what is essentially a tomb. He can't stand upright in his tiny, bitter cold, and utterly lightless cell, and can only communicate through the walls to his fellow sufferers. Years of suffocating darkness and near-starvation grind slowly by as innocent men die in unspeakable anguish. Salim surrenders his cramped, famished body to its fate, and concentrates all his energy on preserving his mind, praying and meditating with such intensity that his lucidity and discipline, along with the stories he tells, infuse his comrades with their only hope. Tragically, renowned novelist and essayist Ben Jelloun based this wrenching yet exquisite tribute to the "supreme light" of the human spirit in the face of "infinite cruelty" on actual events, hoping that by telling this painful tale with respect and empathy, by finding a transcendent beauty in suffering with dignity, resistance, and spirituality, he might combat ignorance and brutality.

The protagonist is a young man of very meager circumstances living with his widowed mother in Casablanca while he attends college as an English major. The city’s ancient streets teem with political unrest, but Youssef seems disconnected. His thoughts are haunted by the loss of his father in a freak accident when Youssef was an infant. Shocked by his doting mother’s precipitous confession that he is not the son of her late husband, Youssef determines to find his real father, who turns out to be a successful local businessman. The man sets up Youssef in a chic apartment, quite a contrast to the slum Youssef has called home. But such a sudden turn of fortune cannot endure a time of turmoil. A story brimming with insight into the complexities of life in contemporary Morocco.