Oren Kessler’s brave new history book "Palestine 1936" reveals the deep roots of today’s Israel-Palestine conflict. A tragic history shared with the hindsight knowledge of the decades of violence and bloodshed in the region that... Read More

In "Between Starshine and Clay", Nigerian-born writer Sarah Ladipo Manyika gathers significant voices from the African diaspora for engaging discussions on race, culture, and society. Bernardine Evaristo introduces the book with a note... Read More

In the mid-nineteenth century, the expanding United States worked to colonize the territory that’s now Arizona. To do so, it turned to the Middle East for expertise, inspiration, and camels. Natalie Koch’s "Arid Empire" shows how... Read More

In Kay Chronister’s dystopian novel "Desert Creatures", a hardened young girl finds hope where she least expects it. Magdala was born with a clubfoot. After being banished from her home, she and her father travel across a punishing... Read More

In "Plain", Mary Alice Hostetter chronicles her formative years within a Mennonite family and her later quest for personal independence. In Pennsylvania, Hostetter and her siblings worked on her parents’ farm. She also helped with... Read More

Rilla Askew’s historical novel "Prize for the Fire" is the tragic, passionate story of an Englishwoman who lived during the reign of Henry VIII. In 1537, Martha faces an arranged marriage. But her sudden death leaves a void in the... Read More

At the end of the Cold War, a television producer, Natasha Lance Rogoff, took on the challenge of creating Ulitsa Sezam, a Russian version of Sesame Street. In "Muppets in Moscow", she chronicles the challenges of that endeavor, from... Read More

In "Mirror in the Sky", Simon Morrison traces the development of Stevie Nicks’s artistic persona via a perusal of her music. After a brief outline of Nicks’s early life in the American West, the book follows her artistic development,... Read More