Virgins? What Virgins? by Ibn Warraq. 2010, ISBN 978-1-61614-170-7. A book of previously published essays about Islam. Excellent reading, well written. I enjoyed this book very much. If you are interested in learning about Islam this book provides a "middle of the road" rational approach to understanding the many confusing issues. Islam is frequently a highly charged subject, but this book avoids the mania of the true believers, either for or against and just presents well researched facts, etc. Purchased at Borders, 11-02-2010 for $19.00. I hope to read more of his work soon.

The Koran translated and with notes by J. M. Rodwell. 1909. ISBN 978-0-486-44569-4. This Dover Thrift Edition is an unabridged republication of the 1909 edition with the notes and the chronological ordering of the Suras. It is amazing how much different translations can vary. See here for example. A PDF of this book can be obtained at books.google.com. I purchased this copy at Borders sometime last winter (2010) for $5.00.

Interpretation of the Meaning of The Noble Quran Translated into the English Language By Dr. Muhammad Taqi-ud-Din Al-Hilali Ph.D. and Dr. Muhammad Muhsin Khan. This is a pocket sized edition of a popular translation of the Quran. According to the Wikipedia article, this translation of the Quran is disliked by Western Muslims (what is a Western Muslim? verse 3.149 and an associated Hadith by Samara bin Jundab indicate that Muslims shouldn't live in the land of al-shirk, i.e. western countries. See here number 2781.) because it is too blunt, contains grotesque misogyny, and is more like a supremacist Muslim, anti-Semitic, anti-Christian polemic than a rendition of the Islamic scripture. Harsh. The book has both Arabic and English, 975 pages for the Quran and about another 130 pages of preface and appendix. There are many notes attached to the Quran translation taken from Hadith, etc. Here is the text of the translation.

The Koran, translated with notes by N. J. Dawood. I purchased this many years ago, but just recently got around to reading it. It is plain prose and the chapters are not in traditional order, but it is fairly easy to read. There is an index at the back that you can use to find chapters according to their traditional order. The verses are marked, but only every few paragraphs, e.g., it has 15:49 and 15:64, if you wanted to look up an exact verse, this would not be the best book for that. This book is the 1974 printing of ISBN 0-14-044052-6. There are other editions of this book. ISBN 0-14-044542-0 is a revised edition with the text in the traditional order and also has the arabic text.