I am Mary Albanese–mother, educator, and author. We all make mistakes, but in my career, it seems to me that how we deal with our mistakes is what defines us. An error can cripple us or teach us to become a better person. To me, nothing is more powerful than the path to redemption and forgiveness. I love these books because they make me feel as if I am inside the story, facing the hard choices. More than just stories, each one is a journey of transformation into the heart of the human soul. I hope you find these books as meaningful and profound as I have.
I found this book so shocking that I couldn’t put it down. I was so mad at Amir for betraying his friend Hasim that I didn’t believe he could possibly be redeemed. I didn’t think he deserved it. Yet, with skill and grace, the author takes us so deep inside Amir’s feelings and lingering shame that it reminded me of the times that I let someone down or said something I wish I hadn’t.
As much as I’d like to ignore my mistakes or pretend them away, this book shows me that there is always a way back to try to do the right thing. It might be hard. It will be humbling. But I am grateful to this book for reminding me to try.
Afghanistan, 1975: Twelve-year-old Amir is desperate to win the local kite-fighting tournament and his loyal friend Hassan promises to help him. But neither of the boys can foresee what will happen to Hassan that afternoon, an event that is to shatter their lives. After the Russians invade and the family is forced to flee to America, Amir realises that one day he must return to Afghanistan under Taliban rule to find the one thing that his new world cannot grant him: redemption.
Angela Burke Kunkel is an author, school librarian, and former English Language Arts teacher. She has experience working with all types of young readers, from the reluctant to the voracious, and has taught in both alternative and public schools, including a New Mexico middle school with a nationally-recognized dual education program. She is passionate about ensuring equitable book access for all children, and has published articles and participated as a panelist on these issues.
The Library Bus offers a glimpse into the importance of mobile libraries, showing how one bus run by a mother and daughter delivers books, school supplies, and lessons to other young girls in Afghanistan. Told of the course of one day, with the bus leaving Kabul in the very early morning and ending at bedtime, the story explains the restrictions women and girls faced under Taliban rule in a clear and age-appropriate way.
Author Bahram Rahman grew up in Afghanistan during years of civil war and the restrictive Taliban regime of 1996-2001. He wrote The Library Bus to tell new generations about the struggles of women who, like his own sister, were forbidden to learn.
It is still dark in Kabul, Afghanistan when the library bus rumbles out of the city. There are no bus seats-instead there are chairs and tables and shelves of books. And there are no passengers-instead there is Pari, who is nervously starting her first day as Mama's library helper. Pari stands tall to hand out notebooks and pencils…
The first person I ever trusted in the world was a high-school English teacher, a woman named Margaret Muth. She plucked me out of a trash-can, literally and figuratively. When I was seventeen years old, she told me: “Books will teach you. They will help you. Choose books the way you choose the risks you take in life: do it patiently, thoughtfully. Then give yourself to them with a whole heart. This is how you learn.” This is one sentence, from one teacher, given to a teenager of decidedly crude and primitive material—one sentence that changed his whole life for the better. Bless her.
An extraordinary book by an extraordinary woman. Saira Shah recounts her journeys in Pakistan and Afghanistan, in the context of her upbringing in a family with deep roots in the region. She is on the ground during the rise of the Taliban and the fight against the Russian occupation, and the story is hair-raising, enlightening, revelatory, informed, and insightfully detailed. Ms. Shah went on to make the celebrated documentary Beneath the Veil, risking her life daily to shoot video during the first phase of Taliban control. Unforgettable, and indispensable for understanding Afghanistan.
Imagine that a jewel-like garden overlooking Kabul is your ancestral home. Imagine a kitchen made fragrant with saffron strands and cardamom pods simmering in an authentic pilau. Now remember that you were born in London, your family in exile, and that you have never seen Afghanistan in peacetime.
These are but the starting points of Saira Shah’s memoir, by turns inevitably exotic and unavoidably heartbreaking, in which she explores her family’s history in and out of Afghanistan. As an accomplished journalist and documentarian–her film Beneath the Veil unflinchingly depicted for CNN viewers the humiliations forced on women under Taliban rule–Shah…
My sister worked for nine years teaching women in Afghanistan, and the Taliban tried to kill her for it—several times. Back in 2011, I was able to visit her in-country and I fell in love with the kind, brave people and their scarred, stubborn nation. But when my sister was eventually forced to return home, she was not the sister who had left. Refugees told me similar stories; stories about memories that wouldn’t stay quiet even though they were safe. I couldn’t help wondering: How do you rebuild a life after losing everything? My debut book, The Eleventh Trade, became the place I wrestled with that question.
When bombs fall on Nadia’s home, she’s separated from her family in the middle of a war. Over the course of a few short, dangerous days, she has to find a way through her destroyed city to her parents. With startling detail, N.H. Senzai captures the frenzy and peril of Nadia’s situation.
N.H. Senzai also writes wonderful books about Afghan refugees, like Shooting Kabul, but I personally found Escape from Aleppo her best work so far. I read it all in a gulp, and came out with a deeper understanding of what even a tiny slice of the refugee experience can look like.
"Filled with kindness and hope...Heartbreaking...Necessary." -Booklist (starred review)
Nadia's family is forced to flee their home in Aleppo, Syria, when the Arab Spring sparks a civil war in this timely, "harrowing" (Publishers Weekly) coming-of-age novel from award-winning author N.H. Senzai.
Silver and gold balloons. A birthday cake covered in pink roses. A new dress.
Nadia stands at the center of attention in her parents' elegant dining room. This is the best day of my life, she thinks. Everyone is about to sing "Happy Birthday," when her uncle calls from the living room, "Baba, brothers, you need to see this." Reluctantly,…
I am a man of principles. I have suffered from life's hardships and enjoyed its beauty. I have always been patient, modest, peaceful, and conscientious. I have written seventeen books, including fiction and nonfiction. My writings reflect social injustice, political corruption, and psychological dilemmas, focusing on aesthetic phenomena and universal qualities such as truth, justice, humanity, morality, freedom, beauty, and more. With this background, I am recommending the following five books because they display conspiratorial relationships between individuals, resulting in a heavy toll that impacts the relationships.
This book explores the universal themes of ignorance and political dictatorship. It shows how the Taliban conspired against the protagonist to harm him and destroy books. The Sultan, the protagonist, who stands for knowledge, is crushed by the Taliban and imprisoned because he is a distributor of books.
The Sultan embodies the pursuit and dissemination of knowledge, perhaps as a teacher, librarian, or simply someone who believes in the power of education and free thought. His imprisonment by the Taliban underscores the conflict between enlightenment and oppression, as the Taliban seeks to suppress ideas and control the population through fear and ignorance.
My love for the book likely stems from the emotional impact of Sultan's plight, as I witness the injustice of a man being punished for his commitment to something as fundamental and noble as sharing knowledge. The narrative explores themes of resistance, resilience, and the enduring power of…
This mesmerizing portrait of a proud man who, through three decades and successive repressive regimes, heroically braved persecution to bring books to the people of Kabul has elicited extraordinary praise throughout the world and become a phenomenal international bestseller. The Bookseller of Kabul is startling in its intimacy and its details - a revelation of the plight of Afghan women and a window into the surprising realities of daily life in today's Afghanistan.
My favorite genre, historical fiction, inserts characters into real-life events. As a former news reporter, I enjoyed doing research when communicating factual information to readers. I love learning about different time periods and coming away with a fresh perspective on times gone by. History is subjective and always revised and revisited, but factual dates and occurrences remain the same. All the stories I chose to review reveal how fictionalized characters, in real events, deal with coming out on the other side of loss or pain with a stronger spirit. None of us escape loss. It’s inevitable. But there’s healing over time and trust in a God that loves us beyond expectations.
I cried at the conclusion of this book. I cried because I cared so deeply for the women I met on their journeys. And I cried to release the anguish I felt from their rejection, constriction, and subjugation to arranged marriages.
I’m so very grateful for a book written by an Afghan with a clear-eyed perspective of his culture and sensitivity to the tyranny of suppression, especially for women treated as unequal to men. But there’s so much more to this book; it is an homage to courage, resilience, and, ultimately, love, namely, a mother’s self-sacrificing love. The characters conquer despair and limited freedoms with enduring hope.
Mariam is only fifteen when she is sent to Kabul to marry Rasheed. Nearly two decades later, a friendship grows between Mariam and a local teenager, Laila, as strong as the ties between mother and daughter. When the Taliban take over, life becomes a desperate struggle against starvation, brutality and fear. Yet love can move a person to act in unexpected ways, and lead them to overcome the most daunting obstacles with a startling heroism.
I have lived, breathed, and studied peace and conflict since 1998, but what I’m most passionate about is the plight of the people. I spent over a decade in countries such as Iraq, Sudan, and East Timor providing humanitarian assistance followed by another decade writing and working on the consequences of wars. The more we understand the impact of wars the better humanity will be placed to stop them. That is why I chose five beautifully written books that will be difficult to put down while offering an array of voices and perspectives that together provide insights into how we can better respond to outbreaks of war.
Ann Jones’ memoir Kabul in Winter takes the reader inside the lives of Afghan women following the overthrow of the Taliban in the early 2000s. The book includes the necessarytour of Afghanistan’s history taking the reader through major events alongside the more valuable contribution of her time in Kabul. The book’s beauty lies in Jones’ ability to explain the plight of Afghan women in the complex context of entrenched cultural norms and religious beliefs without relying on simplistic Western cliches. We get to understand that there is no easy solution, no quick fix, because the entire society is structured around an uber patriarchy. I loved how her writing didn’t hold back and how her passion shines through along with her anger and despair.
Soon after the bombs stopped falling on Kabul, award-winning journalist and women's rights activist Ann Jones set out for the shattered city. This is her trenchant report from the city where she spent the next four winters working in humanitarian aid. Investigating the city's prison for women, retraining Kabul's long - silenced English teachers, Jones enters the lives of everyday women and men and reveals through small events some big disjunctions: between the new Afghan "democracy" and the still-entrenched warlords, between American promises and performance, between what's boasted of and what is. At once angry, profound, and starkly beautiful, "Kabul…
I never expected to enjoy Nadia Hashimi’s Sparks Like Stars as thoroughly as I did.
I had to read it because, as Master of Ceremonies of the 2023 Day of the Book Festival in Kensington, MD., I was going to be interviewing the author on stage. The novel surprised and delighted me, as Hashimi fills her pages with passion, insight, and authenticity. One aspect of Hashimi’s writing that stays with me still was her ability to capture the voice of Sitara, the young heroine in the story.
I enjoyed the stark truths explored in this book, which in the end is an inspiring story of survival and resilience.
"Suspenseful...emotionally compelling. I found myself eagerly following in a way I hadn't remembered for a long time, impatient for the next twist and turn of the story."-NPR
An Afghan American woman returns to Kabul to learn the truth about her family and the tragedy that destroyed their lives in this brilliant and compelling novel from the bestselling author of The Pearl That Broke Its Shell, The House Without Windows, and When the Moon Is Low.
Kabul, 1978: The daughter of a prominent family, Sitara Zamani lives a privileged life in Afghanistan's thriving cosmopolitan capital. The 1970s are a time of…
Long before I became a filmmaker and many years before I knew what pre-history meant, I was a restless traveler. I was an adventurer and a hiker, fascinated by maps and mountain peaks and constantly searching for the best place for a coffee break. In my list, I have tried to combine my passion for traveling with what is really important in life: people, friends, and travel companions.
I had this book beside me while recovering from an urgent hip replacement. A guy who walked solo from Herat to Kabul in the winter of Afghanistan can be a great aid when you struggle in the stairwell.
Stewart–a former MP and nowadays the host of The Rest is Politics podcast–did the job for me in his excellent book and brave walk. A few months after my operation, I hiked the Mont Blanc trail. It's nothing like Afghanistan, but I did come across some icy peaks.
In 2001 Rory Stewart set off from Herat to walk to Kabul via the mountains of Ghor in central Afghanistan. This was to be the last leg of a 21 month walk across Asia. The country was in turmoil following the recent US invasion and the mountain passes still covered in snow. Suspicious of his motives, and worried for his safety, the authorities provided Rory with two armed guards who accompanied him, but whom he soon out-walked. Later he was given a dog, whom he named 'Babur' in honour of the great Moghul Emperor in whose footsteps the two of…
I grew up during the civil rights movement in the US, and my ancestors—the lucky ones—escaped pogroms in eastern Europe at the turn of the 20th century and made it to North America. (The unlucky ones were slaughtered in the Holocaust.) So I suppose it is natural that I would be drawn to write stories about the struggle to overcome persecution, racism, and injustice. I love creating characters who, at the beginning of the story, don’t know that they have what it takes to fight for justice, but then slowly build the confidence and courage to make a difference. And writing about these triumphs is fun, too!
From our comfortable perch in North America, it’s almost impossible to imagine how children—girls, especially—survive in Afghanistan under Taliban rule. The Breadwinner made it real to me, with all the oppression that the main character, eleven-year-old Parvana, experiences and all the courage she demonstrates. This book showed me the common humanity we share with people whose lives are so different from our own. And it forced me to ask myself: Could I have been as brave and resourceful as Parvana?
Afghanistan: Parvana's father is arrested and taken away by Taliban soldiers. Under Taliban law, women and girls are not allowed to leave the house on their own.
Parvana, her mother, and sisters are prisoners in their own home. With no man to go out to buy food, they face starvation.
So Parvana must pretend to be a boy to save her family. It is a dangerous plan, but their only chance. In fear, she goes out - and witnesses the horror of landmines, the brutality of the Taliban, and the desperation of a country trying to survive. But even in…
