 | Modern Written Arabic: A Comprehensive Grammar (Routledge Comprehensive Grammars) by Adrian Gully
Buy new: $71.95 / Used from: $64.09 New must-have (for the advanced student) descriptive reference grammar of Modern Standard Arabic. Very good as description and filled with illustrations. Highly technical terminology. 800 pages...
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 | A Grammar of the Arabic Language (3rd Edition) by W. Wright
Buy new: $85.50 / Used from: $29.95 The classic Classical Arabic reference grammar (less useful for Modern Standard Arabic). I think Fischer below would be better for most new users, tho' I prefer Wright.
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 | A Grammar of Classical Arabic: Third Revised Edition by Wolfdietrich Fischer
Buy new: $48.00 / Used from: $49.00 Perhaps the best modern Classical reference grammar, newly trans. from German. Easier to read and more up-to-date than Wright, but has nothing on prosody and does not give Arabic native terminology.
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 | A New Arabic Grammar of the Written Language by John A. Haywood
Buy new: $30.40 / Used from: $20.00 Must-have for student of Arabic. I think it's the best teaching grammar and a good reference for students to high intermediate level and all students of Arabic should have it on their shelves!
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 | The Connectors in Modern Standard Arabic by Nariman Al-Warraki
Buy new: $15.63 / Used from: $11.04 While a grammar book teaches you all about morphology and is usually sparse on details of syntax, this book will lead you towards the goal of writing idiomatic modern standard Arabic.
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 | Standard Arabic: An Advanced Course by James Dickins
Buy new: $35.99 / Used from: $18.75 A good course to lead a student on beyond the basic grammar into real Arabic. Buy the tapes and the Teacher's Guide too if you've no teacher as the Guide contains translations and recommended answers.
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 | Focus on Contemporary Arabic (Conversations with Native Speakers) by Shukri Abed
Buy new: $35.95 / Used from: $45.14 This is an excellent little book/DVD combo. The DVD contains a number of shortish conversations with Arabic speakers on a variety of topics and in a variety of registers (formal Arabic, more colloquial Arabic, even one or two in Bedouin dialects). The book contains transcripts in vocalized Arabic script.
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 | Business Arabic, Intermediate Level: Language, Culture and Communication by Raji M. Rammuny
Buy new: $27.58 / Used from: $29.95 A book I've only glanced at in the shop, but have on my to-buy list. A book to actually allow you to make use of your Arabic in a professional environment. There's an Advanced book too.
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 | Arabic-English Dictionary: The Hans Wehr Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic by Hans Wehr
Buy new: $40.50 / Used from: $15.95 Wehr is the indispensable Arabic-English dictionary for all students of Arabic. It's in root order. The Arabic-German edition is more up-to-date (but v. pricey)
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 | AL Mawrid (Arabic-English Dictionary) by Rohi Dr. Baalbaki
Buy used from: $185.12 The Mawrid is a great second A-E dictionary. It's in alphabetic order, so when one gets stuck with Wehr, the word can still be found. But it doesn't have any grammatical info on words...
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 | The Concise Oxford Englis Dictionary of Current Usage (Dictionary) (Dictionary) by Safa Khulusi
Buy new: $33.56 / Used from: $14.07 The only useful English-Arabic dictionary aimed at learners of Arabic. A bit dated, like its big brother, now almost 40 years old!
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 | Al Mawrid (English-Arabic dictionary) by Mounir Baalbaki
The best English-Arabic dictionary for content, but like the Arabic-English, little thought has been given to the learner of Arabic.
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| Arabic English Dictionary by J. G. Hava
Buy new: $32.95 / Used from: $17.13 This dictionary, Hava's al-Faraid, is a well-priced Classical Arabic root-order dictionary to supplement Wehr. Much, much cheaper than Lane. There's a hardback in print too.
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 | Arabic-English Lexicon (Islamic Texts Society) by E.W. Lane
Buy new: $495.00 / Used from: $587.73 The Rolls-Royce of Classical Arabic root-order dictionaries. This has 2 volumes in tiny but clear print; the cheaper (price and quality) 8 volume editions may be easier for some to read.
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| Vocabulary of Modern Standard Arabic (Eng & Arabic) by Urs Bucher
Best - almost the only - book I have found to give a themed and graded introduction to Arabic vocabulary. Very valuable. May be hard to get, but I don't think it's out of print.
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 | Using Arabic Synonyms by Dilworth Parkinson
Buy new: $40.32 / Used from: $42.95 Excellent volume on Synonyms in Arabic. Remembering that there's no such thing as a true synonym, the book takes you through groups of similar words in Arabic with plentiful Arabic in the examples. In fact, there's much more Arabic than English in this book, which is how it should be.
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 | Modern Arabic: Structures, Functions, and Varieties (Georgetown Classics in Arabic Language and Linguistics) by Clive, Holes
Buy new: $39.95 / Used from: $34.90 Like Versteegh, but more practically - and technically - linguistic. I think more useful, but I have learned much from each. Just back in print in a revised edition.
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 | The Arabic Language by Kees Versteegh
Buy new: $37.66 / Used from: $22.95 A good introduction to different aspects of the Arabic language, such as its history, its dialects, its standards. Very interesting. Not a grammar - rather it discusses of the language.
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 | Thinking Arabic Translation (Thinking Translation) by James Dickins
Buy new: $36.85 / Used from: $34.12 Strictly for Advanced or postgrad students. Dr. Dickins covers a wide range of themes and a quite a bit of theory in this excellent book. Part of series: Thinking Italian Translation is good too.
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 | Arabic Stylistics. A Coursebook. by Hussein Abdul-Raof
Buy used from: $90.20 A book I have some hesitation in adding: it's an introduction to stylistics with an Arabic base. I think it useful if patchy, but it might be better to go through with a teacher than alone.
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 | Arabic Writing for Style: al-Kitaba wa-l-uslub by Waheed Samy
Buy new: $15.95 / Used from: $14.14 A book that I think rather more practical than Abdul-Rouf's book. But it is entirely in Arabic and will be useful to the advanced student only.
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 | Writing Arabic: A Practical Introduction to Ruq'ah Script by T. F. Mitchell
Buy new: $60.88 / Used from: $40.00 The best introduction to writing in an everyday Arabic script well that I know of. It teaches the ruq'a script which nine-tenths of Arabs use. First published in the '50's, it's unsurpassed
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 | Arabic Calligraphy by Mustafa Ja'far
Buy new: $12.34 / Used from: $16.28 A really nicely produced and useful book on the naskh script. I've not seen anything else half as good on naskh in English. Practically I'd recommend ruq'a as a better everyday script.
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| Letters in Gold Ottoman Calligraphy from the Sakip Sabanci Collection, Istanbul by Ugur Derman
Buy used from: $438.90 I must add this - it's a book that I find inspirational. Nothing of strict application to the Arabist, bar an excellent introduction to traditional calligraphy (the Arabic terms are in Turkish form).
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 | Islamic Calligraphy by Sheila S. Blair
Buy new: $182.50 / Used from: $189.69 Sheila Blair's new book is the standard text in English for anyone who wished to know about the history of Arabic-script calligraphy (including Persian and Ottoman Turkish). Recommended, if v. pricey indeed!
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 | An Introduction to Modern Arabic by Farhat J. Ziadeh
Buy new: $16.95 / Used from: $7.29 A new discovery for me - an introductory work that's ideal for revision, it's filled with examples acompanied by grammatical analyses. Based on teaching by Phillip Hitti in the 40's.
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