Recommended Books

Anya's Ghost
Author:
Vera Brosgol
ISBN 13:
978-1596435520
Anya could really use a friend. But her new BFF isn't kidding about the "Forever" part . . . Of all the things Anya expected to find at the bottom of an old well, a new friend was not one of them. Especially not a new friend who's been dead for a century. Falling down a well is bad enough, but Anya's normal life might actually be worse. She's embarrassed by her family, self-conscious about her body, and she's pretty much given up on fitting in at school. A new friend―even a ghost―is just what she needs. Or so she thinks. Spooky, sardonic, and secretly sincere, Anya's Ghost is a wonderfully entertaining debut graphic novel from author/artist Vera Brosgol. This title has Common Core connections. Anya's Ghost is a 2011 Kirkus Best Teen Books of the Year title. One of School Library Journal 's Best Fiction Books of 2011. One of Horn Book 's Best Fiction Books of 2011. Winner of the 2012 Eisner Award for Best Publication for Young Adults (Ages 12-17)

The Color of Earth
Author:
Dong Hwa Kim
ISBN 13:
978-1596434585
First love is never easy. Ehwa grows up helping her widowed mother run the local tavern, watching as their customers – both neighbors and strangers – look down on her mother for her single lifestyle. Their social status isolates Ehwa and her mother from the rest of the people in their quiet country village. But as she gets older and sees her mother fall in love again, Ehwa slowly begins to open up to the possibility of love in her life. In the tradition of My Antonia and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn , from the pen of the renowned Korean manwha creator Kim Dong Hwa, comes a trilogy about a girl coming of age, set in the vibrant, beautiful landscape of pastoral Korea.

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
Author:
Alison Bechdel
ISBN 13:
978-0618871711
CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED, NATIONAL BESTSELLER ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21 ST CENTURY Time Magazine #1 Book of the Year • National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist Winner of the Stonewall Book Award • Double finalist for the Lambda Book Award Alison Bechdel’s groundbreaking, bestselling graphic memoir that charts her fraught relationship with her late father. Distant and exacting, Bruce Bechdel was an English teacher and director of the town funeral home, which Alison and her family referred to as the "Fun Home." It was not until college that Alison, who had recently come out as a lesbian, discovered that her father was also gay. A few weeks after this revelation, he was dead, leaving a legacy of mystery for his daughter to resolve. In her hands, personal history becomes a work of amazing subtlety and power, written with controlled force and enlivened with humor, rich literary allusion, and heartbreaking detail.

A Revolution Undone: Egypt's Road Beyond Revolt
Author:
H.A. Hellyer
ISBN 13:
978-0190659738
Amid the turbulence of the 2011 Arab uprisings, the revolutionary uprising that played out in Cairo's Tahrir Square created high expectations before dashing the hopes of its participants. The upheaval led to a sequence of events in Egypt that scarcely anyone could have predicted, and precious few have understood: five years on, the status of Egypt's unfinished revolution remains shrouded in confusion. Power shifted hands rapidly, first from protesters to the army leadership, then to the politicians of the Muslim Brotherhood, and then back to the army. The politics of the street has given way to the politics of Islamist-military détentes and the undoing of the democratic experiment. Meanwhile, a burgeoning Islamist insurgency occupies the army in Sinai and compounds the nation's sense of uncertainty. A Revolution Undone blends analysis and narrative, charting Egypt's journey from Tahrir to Sisi from the perspective of an author and analyst who lived it all. H.A. Hellyer brings his first-hand experience to bear in his assessment of Egypt's experiment with protest and democracy. And by scrutinizing Egyptian society and public opinion, Islamism and Islam, the military and government, as well as the West's reaction to events, Hellyer provides a much-needed appraisal of Egypt's future prospects.

Throne of the Crescent Moon
Author:
Saladin Ahmed
ISBN 13:
978-0575132931
Traditional swords & sorcery fantasy with an authentic middle-eastern spin. The Crescent Moon Kingdoms, land of djenn and ghuls, holy warriors and heretics, Khalifs and killers, is at boiling point. A power struggle between the iron-fisted Khalif and the mysterious master thief known as the Falcon Prince is reaching its climax. In the midst of this brewing rebellion, a series of brutal supernatural murders strikes at the heart of the Kingdoms. Only a handful of reluctant heroes can learn the truth, and stop the killing. Doctor Adoulla Makhslood just wants a quiet cup of tea. Three score and more years old, he has grown weary of hunting monsters and saving lives, and is more than ready to retire from his dangerous and demanding vocation. But when an old flame's family is murdered, Adoulla is drawn back to the hunter's path. Raseed bas Raseed, Adoulla's young assistant, a hidebound holy warrior whose prowess is matched only by his piety, is eager to deliver God's justice. Zamia Badawi has been gifted with the near-mythical power of the Lion-Shape, but shunned by her people for daring to take up a man's title. She lives only to avenge her father's death. Until she learns that Adoulla and his allies also hunt her father's killer. Until she meets Raseed. When they learn that the murders and the Falcon Prince's brewing revolution are connected, the companions must race against time to save the life of a vicious despot. In so doing they discover a plot for the Throne of the Crescent Moon that threatens to turn the city, and the world itself, into a blood-soaked ruin.

The Meccan Revelations, volume I
Authors:
Ibn al'Arabi
,
Michel Chodkiewicz
,
William C. Chittick
,
James W. Morris
ISBN 13:
978-1879708167
Perhaps no mystic in the history of the world has delved as deeply into the inner knowledge that informs our being as did Ibn 'Arabi. He was born into the cultural and religious crucible of Andalusian Spain in 1165, a place and time in which Muslim, Jewish and Christian scholars learned from each other and from the Greek classics that were then being translated and circulated. Drawing from the most advanced philosophical and metaphysical thinking of his time and from his extensive knowledge of the religion of Islam, Ibn 'Arabi created an extraordinary mystical theology that essentially sprang from his own spiritual realization. Because of the advanced nature of his teachings he has been known for 800 years as the Sheikh al-Akbar, or the Greatest Master. Because of the subtlety of his language and complexity of his thought, access to Ibn 'Arabi has always been difficult and translation daunting. Previously only short extracts were available in English. This volume, the first in our English translation of Les Illuminations de la Mecque, contains 22 key chapters of this Sufi 'summa mystica,' on such issues as Ibn 'Arabi's doctrine of the Divine Names, the nature of spiritual experience, the end of time, the resurrection and the stages of the path that lead to sanctity. This great book soars beyond time, culture and any particular form of religion. Describing what is fundamental to our humanity, it is astonishingly universal. Finally readers in the West have an entree into one of the most important, profound works of world literature.