Suggested Books and Videos

Memoir/Personal Stories

  • Another Day at the Front: Dispatches from the Race War, by Ishmael Reed

  • Chinese Cinderella: the True Story of an Unwanted Daughter, by Adeline Yen Mah

  • Extraordinary Groups: an Examination of Unconventional Life-Styles, by William M. Kephart

  • Myada, daughter of Iraq: One Woman's Survival under Saddam Hussein, by Jean Sasson

  • My Forbidden Face: Growing Up under the Taliban: A Young Woman's Story, by Latifa

  • My Name is Number 4: a True Story from the Cultural Revolution, by Ting-Xing Ye

  • War Is...Soldiers, Survivors, and Storytellers Talk about War, edited by Marc Aronson and Patty Campbell

  • The Colors of Freedom: Immigrant Stories, by Janet Bode

  • Women of the West, by Cathy Luchetti

  • Zoya's Story: An Afghan Woman's Struggle for Freedom, by Zoya with John Follian and Rita Cristofari

Cookbooks

  • Asian Vegetarian Feast, by Ken Hom

  • Cooking with Green Tea, by Ying Chang Compestine

  • Cuisines of India: The Art and Tradition of Regional Indian Cooking, by Smita Chandra

  • Eat Tea:  A New Approach to Flavoring Contemporary and Traditional Dishes, by Joanna Pruess

  • Encyclopedia of Indian Cooking, by Khalid Aziz

  • Flavorful India: Treasured Recipes from a Gujarati Family, by Priti Chitnis Gress

  • Iced tea:  50 recipes for Refreshing Tisanes, Infusions, Coolers, and Spiked Teas, by Fred Thompson

  • A Spoonful of Ginger:  Irresistible, Health-Giving Recipes from Asian Kitchens, by Nina Simonds

  • World Vegetarian:  More than 650 Meatless Recipes from Around the Globe, by Madhur Jaffrey

Mountaineering

  • The Breach:  Kilimanjaro and the conquest of Self, by Rob Taylor

  • Into Thin Air:  A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster, by Jon Krakauer

  • Miracle in the Andes:  72 days On the Mountain and My Long Trek Home, by Nando Parrado with Vince Rause

  • No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World's 14 Highest Peaks, by Ed Viesturs with David Roberts

  • Savage Summit:  The True Stories of the First Five Women Who Climbed K2, The World's Most Feared Mountain, by Jennifer Jordan

  • Touching My Father's Soul:  A Sherpa's Journey To the Top of Everest, by Jamling Tenzing Norgay with Broughton Coburn

  • Touching the Void, by Joe Simpson

Long Walks

  • A Land so Strange:  The Epic Journey of Cabeza de Vaca:  The Extraordinary Tale of a Shipwrecked Spaniard Who Walked Across America in the Sixteenth Century, by Andres Resendez

  • The Long Walk, by Slavomir Rawicz

  • The Man Who Walked Through Time, by Colin Fletcher

  • The Places In Between, by Rory Stewart

  • The Road, by Cormac McCarthy

  • The Snow Leopard, by Peter Matthiessen

People who make a difference

  • The Camel Bookmobile, by Masha Hamilton

  • Leaving Microsoft to Change the World:  An Entrepreneur's Odyssey to Educate the World's Children, by John Wood

  • Another Day in Paradise:  International Humanitarian Workers Tell their Stories, by Carol Bergman

  • Monique and The Mango Rains:  Two Years with a Mid-Wife in Mali, by Kris Holloway

  • Mountains Beyond Mountains, by Tracy Kidder

  • Nine Hills to Nambonkaha:  Two Years in the Heart of an African Village, by Sarah Erdman

  • The Village of Waiting, by George Packer

  • An Imperfect Offering:  Humanitarian Action for the Twenty-First Century, by James Orbinski

  • Keep Walking: One Man's Journey to Feed the World One Child at a Time, by Larry Jones

  • Lighting the way:  Nine Women Who Changed Modern America, by Karenna Gore Schiff

  • A simple Path, by Mother Teresa:  compiled by Lucinda Vardey

  • Stone Soup for the World:  Life Changing Stories of Everyday Heroes, collected by Marianne Larned

  • Your America:  Democracy's Local Heroes, by John Siceloff and Jason Maloney

Education

  • All Girls:  Single-Sex Education and Why it Matters, by Karen Stabiner

  • Among Schoolchildren, by Tracy Kidder

  • Common Ground:  A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families, by J. Anthony Lukas

  • Educating Esme:  A Diary of a Teacher's First Year, by Esme Raji Codell

  • The End of Education:  Redefining the Value of School, by Neil Postman

  • Kwanzaa and Me:  A Teacher's Story, by Vivian Gussin Paley

  • Learning to Bow:  An American Teacher in a Japanese School, by Bruce S. Feiler

  • Letters to a Young Teacher, by Jonathan Kozol

  • Losing my Faculties by Brendan Halpin

  • Making Schools Better:  How Parents and Teachers Across the Country are Taking Action-and How You Can, Too, by Larry Martz

  • The Miseducation of Women, by James Tooley

  • Our School, by Joanne Jacobs

  • Separate but Not Equal:  The Dream and the Struggle, by Jim Haskins

Religion

  • Acts of Faith:  The Story of an American Muslim, The Struggle For the Soul of a Generation, by Eboo Patel

  • The Faith Club:  A Muslim, A Christian, A Jew-Three Women Search for Understanding, by Ranya Idliby, Suzanne Oliver, Priscilla Warner

  • Infidel, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

  • Muhammad:  A Prophet For Our Time, by Karen Armstrong

  • My Father's Paradise:  A Son's Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq, by Ariel Sabar

Fiction

  • A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini

  • Broken Verses, by Kamila Shamsie

  • A Case of Exploding Mangoes, by Mohammed Hanif

  • The End of Manners, by Francesca Marciano

  • Fidali's Way, by George Mastras

  • Gardens of Water, by Alan Drew

  • In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, by Daniyal Mueenuddin

  • Kartography, by Kamila Shamsie

  • the Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini

  • The Reluctant Fundamentalists, by Mohsin Hamid

  • The Swallows of Kabul, by Yasmina Khadra

  • The Wasted Vigil, by Nadeem Aslam

Afghanistan/Pakistan Travels

  • Afghanistan:  A Companion and Guide, by Bijan Omrani

  • Afghanistan's Endless War:  State Failure, Regional Politics, and the Rise of the Taliban, by Larry P. Goodson

  • Among the Afghans, by Arthur Bonner

  • An Unexpected Light:  Travels in Afghanistan, by Jason Elliot

  • Beyond the Khyber Pass:  The Road to British disaster in the First Afghan War, by John H. Waller

  • The Bookseller of Kabul, by Asne Seierstad

  • Ghost Wars:  The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001, by Steve Coll

  • Let's Visit Pakistan, by John C. Caldwell

  • The Lion's Grave:  Dispatches from Afghanistan, by Jon Lee Anderson

  • The Taliban:  War, Religion and the New Order in Afghanistan, by Peter Marsden

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

Last Modified: January 19, 2010