Nasreen's Secret School

Nasreen's Secret School
Author: Jeanette Winter
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 40
Release: 2011-06-28
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1442441216

Renowned picture book creator Jeanette Winter tells the story of a young girl in Afghanistan who attends a secret school for girls. Young Nasreen has not spoken a word to anyone since her parents disappeared. In despair, her grandmother risks everything to enroll Nasreen in a secret school for girls. Will a devoted teacher, a new friend, and the worlds she discovers in books be enough to draw Nasreen out of her shell of sadness? Based on a true story from Afghanistan, this inspiring book will touch readers deeply as it affirms both the life-changing power of education and the healing power of love.

My Year of Living Dangerously: An American Soldier in Afghanistan, revised B&W edition

My Year of Living Dangerously: An American Soldier in Afghanistan, revised B&W edition
Author: William Jones
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 168
Release: 2009-12-07
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0557230039

What is it like to deploy to Afghanistan? Take a glimpse inside a yearlong experience told through photos and uncensored commentary. Bill "Rooster" Jones volunteered for duty in Afghanistan in September 2007 through August 2008 and served as an Engineer in both the mountainous Hindu-Kush region in the north and the violent and dangerous Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan. He kept in touch with friends and family religiously, chronicling his journey through photos and a running commentary that is direct, descriptive, and often humorous. This book captures what he saw, felt, and thought throughout his tour. Unlike most books about war, this story is not about politics, strategy or tactics. It explains what it was like to be there. Rooster captures the essence of place - the smells, sights, and feelings that we would all experience if we had been in his boots. Join Lieutenant Colonel Jones and see what it is like to work and travel in a war-torn country.--Book review.

Words in the Dust

Words in the Dust
Author: Trent Reedy
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2013-03-01
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 054557806X

Winner of the Christopher Medal and a "heart-wrenching" Al Roker's Book Club selection on the Today Show. Zulaikha hopes. She hopes for peace, now that the Taliban have been driven from Afghanistan; a good relationship with her hard stepmother; and one day even to go to school, or to have her cleft palate fixed. Zulaikha knows all will be provided for her--"Inshallah," God willing. Then she meets Meena, who offers to teach her the Afghan poetry she taught her late mother. And the Americans come to her village, promising not just new opportunities and dangers, but surgery to fix her face. These changes could mean a whole new life for Zulaikha--but can she dare to hope they'll come true?

The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual

The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual
Author: Arthur Conan Doyle
Publisher: Lindhardt og Ringhof
Total Pages: 14
Release: 2020-09-29
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 8726586460

Reginald Musgrave, a school friend of Holmes, saw his butler searching through private family papers. The butler Brunton got caught red handed with an ancestral ritual of the Musgraves as well. The ritual seemed worthless to the family but Brunton was determined to decipher it. A few days after Brunton disappeared. "The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual" is a part of "The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes". Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) was born in Scotland and studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh. After his studies, he worked as a ship’s surgeon on various boats. During the Second Boer War, he was an army doctor in South Africa. When he came back to the United Kingdom, he opened his own practice and started writing crime books. He is best known for his thrilling stories about the adventures of Sherlock Holmes. He published four novels and more than 50 short-stories starring the detective and Dr Watson, and they play an important role in the history of crime fiction. Other than the Sherlock Holmes series, Doyle wrote around thirty more books, in genres such as science-fiction, fantasy, historical novels, but also poetry, plays, and non-fiction.

Mountain to Mountain

Mountain to Mountain
Author: Shannon Galpin
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2014-09-16
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1466847050

Being inspired to act can take many forms. For some it's taking a weekend to volunteer, but for Shannon Galpin, it meant leaving her career, selling her house, launching a nonprofit and committing her life to advancing education and opportunity for women and girls. Focusing on the war-torn country of Afghanistan, Galpin and her organization, Mountain2Mountain, have touched the lives of hundreds of men, women and children. As if launching a nonprofit wasn't enough, in 2009 Galpin became the first woman to ride a mountain bike in Afghanistan. Now she's using that initial bike ride to gain awareness around the country, encouraging people to use their bikes "as a vehicle for social change and justice to support a country where women don't have the right to ride a bike." In Mountain to Mountain, her lyric and honest memoir, Galpin describes her first forays into fundraising, her deep desire to help women and girls halfway across the world, her love for adventure and sports, and her own inspiration to be so much more than just another rape victim. During her numerous trips to Afghanistan, Shannon reaches out to politicians and journalists as well as everyday Afghans — teachers, prison inmates, mothers, daughters — to cross a cultural divide and find common ground. She narrates harrowing encounters, exhilarating bike rides, humorous episodes, and the heartbreak inherent in a country that is still recovering from decades of war and occupation.

Swimming with Warlords

Swimming with Warlords
Author: Kevin Sites
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2014-10-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 0062339427

The veteran journalist and author of In the Hot Zone and The Things They Cannot Say explores the impact of more than a decade of war on Afghanistan, from the American invasion after 9/11 to today, and offers insights into its future and the possible consequences for the U.S. Kevin Sites made his first trip to Afghanistan in October 2001, staying 100 days to cover the U.S. invasion for NBC News. On his fifth trip to the country in June 2013, Sites retraced that first odyssey, contemplating the significant events of his original trip to explore what, if anything, has changed. He interviewed warlords, ex-Taliban fighters, politicians, women cops and dentists, farmers, drug addicts, international aid workers, diplomats, and military personnel. In Swimming with Warlords, Sites examines Afghanistan today through the prism of those two parallel journeys, exploring that nation’s past and considering its future in light of the drawdown of U.S. troops. As he tells the stories of the people he met—how they have been affected by this conflict that has cost billions of dollars and thousands of lives—Sites provides a fresh perspective on Afghanistan and America’s role there. Swimming with Warlords contains 30 black-and-white photos throughout.

My Life with the Taliban

My Life with the Taliban
Author: Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef
Publisher: Hurst & Company Limited
Total Pages: 382
Release: 2011-06-16
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1849041520

Abdul Zaeef describes growing up in poverty in rural Kandahar province, which he fled for Pakistan after the Russian invasion of 1979. Zaeef joined the jihad in 1983, was seriously wounded in several encounters and met many leading figures of the resistance, including the current Taliban head, Mullah Mohammad Omar. Disgusted by the lawlessness that ensued after the Soviet withdrawal, Zaeef was one among the former mujahidin who were closely involved in the emergence of the Taliban, in 1994. He then details his Taliban career, including negotiations with Ahmed Shah Massoud and role as ambassador to Pakistan during 9/11. In early 2002 Zaeef was handed over to American forces in Islamabad and spent four and a half years in prison in Bagram and Guantanamo before being released without charge. My Life with the Taliban offers insights into the Pashtun village communities that are the Taliban's bedrock and helps to explain what drives men like Zaeef to take up arms against the foreigners who are foolish enough to invade his homeland.

The Daily Sherlock Holmes

The Daily Sherlock Holmes
Author: Arthur Conan Doyle
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 211
Release: 2019-10-15
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 022665964X

“Dr. Watson, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” said Stamford, introducing us. “How are you?” he said cordially, gripping my hand with a strength for which I should hardly have given him credit. “You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.” “How on earth did you know that?” I asked in astonishment. “Never mind,” said he, chuckling to himself. At that first sight of Watson, Sherlock Holmes made brilliant deductions. But even he couldn’t know that their meeting was inaugurating a friendship that would make himself and the good Doctor cultural icons, as popular as ever more than a century after their 1887 debut. Through four novels and fifty-six stories, Arthur Conan Doyle led the pair through dramatic adventures that continue to thrill readers today, offering an unmatched combination of skillful plotting, period detail, humor, and distinctive characters. For a Holmes fan, there are few pleasures comparable to returning to his richly imagined world—the gaslit streets of Victorian London, the companionable clutter of 221B Baker Street, the reliable fuddlement (and nerves of steel) of Watson, the perverse genius of Holmes himself. It’s all there in The Daily Sherlock Holmes, the perfect bedside companion for fans of the world’s only consulting detective. Within these pages readers will find a quotation for every day of the year, drawn from across the Conan Doyle canon. Beloved characters and familiar lines recall favorite stories and scenes, while other passages remind us that Conan Doyle had a way with description and a ready wit. Moriarty and Mycroft, Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson; the Hound, the Red-Headed League, the Speckled Band, and the dread Reichenbach Falls—it’s all here, anchored, of course, in that unforgettable duo of Holmes and Watson. No book published this year will bring a Holmes fan more pleasure. Come, readers. The game is afoot.

The Sign of Four

The Sign of Four
Author: Simon Goodenough
Publisher:
Total Pages: 200
Release: 1985
Genre: Detective and mystery stories, English
ISBN: 9780863500220

A collection of facsimiles of Dr. Watson's private papers, including notes, telegrams, maps, photographs, newspaper clippings, and other clues to assist the reader in solving the mystery of the Sign of four.