"2014 has the potential to go down as a crucial year in modern world history. A resurgent and bellicose Russia took over Crimea and fueled a civil war in Eastern Ukraine. Post-Saddam Iraq, in many respects a creature of the United States because of the war that began in 2003, lost a third of its territory to an army of hyper-violent millennialists. The peace process in Israel seemed to completely collapse. Finally, after coalescing in Syria as a territorial...

"The spectacularly dramatic memoir of a woman whose curiosity about the world led her from rural Canada to imperiled and dangerous countries on every continent, and then into fifteen months of harrowing captivity in Somalia--a story of courage, resilience, and extraordinary grace .At the age of eighteen, Amanda Lindhout moved from her hardscrabble Alberta hometown to the big city--Calgary--and worked as a cocktail waitress, saving her tips so she...

Kadi is the 15-year-old daughter of a librarian in modern-day Timbuktu. Ali is the son of shepherds and has been conscripted by the Defenders of Faith, an arm of Al Qaeda. When these two teens meet, it's hate at first sight. Forced together by a series of tumultous events, their feelings slowly but persistently turn into something more, causing Kadi to let her guard down and Ali to discover her family's secret hiding place for the manuscripts her...

The riveting exploration of rebellion, memory, and sisterhood reconstructs the story of Olfa Hamrouni and her four daughters, unpacking a complex family history through intimate interviews and artful reenactments to examine how the Tunisian woman's two eldest were radicalized by Islamic extremists. Casting professional actresses as the missing daughters, along with acclaimed Egyptian-Tunisian actress Hend Sabri as Olfa, award-winning director Kaouther...