by Isabella Hammad
The Parisian is Isabella Hammad's remarkable exploration of a Palestinian man's life within the broader geopolitical context of World War I and the British Mandate in Palestine. Midhat Kamal is a teenager in Nablus, a city north of Jerusalem, at the cusp of the war, born into a wealthy merchant family. Eager for his son to avoid military duty, Midhat's widowed father sends him to Montpelier, France, to study medicine. At 19, he is restless for new adventures and promptly falls in love with his French host's
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by Pico Iyer
Readers for whom the name Pico Iyer (The Year of Stillness; The Man Within My Head) conjures up images of a globetrotting journalist posting from places like Dharamsala may be surprised by the domesticated version of him they encounter in his elegiac memoir, Autumn Light. But with the beauty of its prose and the quality of its insight, this gentle, reflective reminiscence reveals again Iyer's literary virtuosity.
Focusing on two months in the late fall of 2013, Iyer eloquently describes his
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by Kip Wilson
White Rose is the fictionalized story of historical figure Sophie Scholl, a student at the University of Munich killed for her rebellion against the Nazis.
Sophie sees her world changing drastically as Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich seize power. Desperate to do something to stop the tide of terror overtaking the country--and then the world--Sophie feels impotent, saying "the war booms/ on while I sit/ here helpless, unable/ to do anything to/ stop it." Her passion is clear as she joins her brother, Hans,
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