Author Title Date Summary Ackerman, Diane The Zookeeper's Wife 2007 1939: the Germans invade Poland. The keepers of the Warsaw Zoo survive the bombardment, only to see the occupiers kill many of their animals. The Nazi's then carry off the prize specimans, to create the "purest" breeds. The zoo keeper's risk their lives by hiding Jews in the zoo, saving as many as 300 people. Adams, Richard Watership Down 1972 Set in England’s Downs, this stirring tale of adventure, courage, and survival follows a band of very special rabbits on their flight from the intrusion of man and the certain destruction of their home. Led by a stouthearted pair of brothers, they journey forth from their native Sandleford Warren through the harrowing trials posed by predators and adversaries, to a mysterious promised land and a more perfect society. Adiche, Chimanda Ngozi Americanah 2013 A story of love and race centered around a young man and woman from Nigeria who face difficult choices and challenges in the countries they come to call home. As teenagers in a Lagos secondary school, Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love. Their Nigeria is under military dictatorship, and people are leaving the country if they can. Ifemelu—beautiful, self-assured—departs for America to study. She suffers defeats and triumphs, finds and loses relationships and friendships, all the while feeling the weight of something she never thought of back home: race. Obinze—the quiet, thoughtful son of a professor—had hoped to join her, but post-9/11 America will not let him in, and he plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. Years later, Obinze is a wealthy man in a newly democratic Nigeria, while Ifemelu has achieved success as a writer of an eye-opening blog about race in America. But when Ifemelu returns to Nigeria, and she and Obinze reignite their shared passion—for their homeland and for each other—they will face the toughest decisions of their lives. Fearless, gripping, at once darkly funny and tender, spanning three continents and numerous lives, Americanah is a richly told story set in today’s globalized world: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s most powerful and astonishing novel yet. Alexievich, Svetlana Voices from Chernobyl 2006 On April 26, 1986, the worst nuclear reactor accident in history occurred in Chernobyl and contaminated as much as three quarters of Europe. Voices from Chernobyl is the first book to present personal accounts of the tragedy. Allende, Isabel Portrait in Sepia 2001 In nineteenth-century Chile, Aurora del Valle suffers a brutal trauma that erases all recollections of the first five years of her life. Raised by her regal and ambitious grandmother Paulina del Valle, Aurora grows up in a privileged environment but is tormented by horrible nightmares. When she is forced to recognize her betrayal at the hands of the man she loves, and to cope with the resulting solitude, she explores the mystery of her past. Author Title Date Summary Allende, Isabel War, So Much War 2015 Despite its title, there is little of war and much of the fantastic in this coming-of-age story, which was the last novel Mercè Rodoreda published during her lifetime. We first meet its young protagonist, Adrià Guinart, as he is leaving Barcelona out of boredom and a thirst for freedom, embarking on a long journey through the backwaters of a rural land that one can only suppose is Catalonia, accompanied by the interminable, distant rumblings of an indefinable war. In vignette-like chapters and with a narrative style imbued with the fantastic, Guinart meets with numerous adventures and peculiar characters who offer him a composite, if surrealistic, view of an impoverished, war-ravaged society and shape his perception of his place in the world. Anaya, Rudolfo Bless Me, Ultima 1972 Antonio Marez is six years old when Ultima comes to stay with his family in New Mexico. She is a curandera, one who cures with herbs and magic. Under her wise wing, Tony will probe the family ties that bind and rend him, and he will discover himself in the magical secrets of the pagan past-a mythic legacy as palpable as the Catholicism of Latin America. And at each life turn there is Ultima, who delivered Tony into the world...and will nurture the birth of his soul. Atwood, Margaret The Blind Assassin 2000 More than fifty years on, Iris Chase is remembering Laura's mysterious death. And so begins an extraordinary and compelling story of two sisters and their secrets. Set against a panoramic backdrop of twentieth-century history, The Blind Assassin is an epic tale of memory, intrigue and betrayal... Austen, Jane Lady Susan 2015 Lady Susan is an epistolary novel, and an early complete work that Jane Austen never submitted for publication. It follows the schemes of the main character, Lady Susan, a beautiful, intelligent and witty widow, as she seeks a new husband for herself and one for her daughter. Lady Susan is a selfish, unscrupulous and scheming woman, highly attractive to men, who tries to trap the best possible husband while maintaining a relationship with a married man. She subverts all the standards of the romantic novel. Austen, Jane Sense and Sensibility 1811 When two sisters appear to be deserted by the young men they had intended to marry, the stage is set for a delicious comedy of manners that not only showcases Austen's perception, humor and incomparable prose, but offers a splendid glimpse of upper and middle-class English society of the early 19th century. Aziz, Basma The Queue 2013 In an unnamed Middle Eastern city, a centralized authority known as the Gate has risen to power in the aftermath of the Disgraceful Events, a failed popular uprising. Citizens are required to obtain permission from the Gate for even the most basic of their daily needs, yet the building never opens and the que in front grows longer and longer. Author Title Date Summary Ba, Mariama So Long a Letter 1980 Recognized as one of Africa's 100 Best Books of the 20th century, written as an extended letter. It is a sequence of reminiscences recounted by recently widowed school teacher Ramatoulaye Fall. This semi-autobiographical account is a testimony to the plight of educated and articulate Muslim women. Backman, Fredrik A Man Called Ove: A Novel 2014 At first sight, Ove is almost certainly the grumpiest man you will ever meet, a curmudgeon with staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People think him bitter, and he thinks himself surrounded by idiots. Ove's well-ordered, solitary world gets a shake up one November morning with the appearance of old neighbors, and various others. Backman, Fredrik My Grandmother Asked Me To 2015 From the author of the internationally bestselling 'A Man Called Ove', a novel about a young Tell You She's Sorry girl whose grandmother dies and leaves behind a series of letters, sending her on a journey that brings to life the world of her grandmother's fairy tales. Elsa is seven years old and different. Her grandmother is seventy-seven years old and crazy, standing-on-the-balcony- firing-paintball-guns-at-men-who-want-to-talk-about-Jesus-crazy. She is also Elsa's best, and only, friend. At night Elsa takes refuge in her grandmother's stories, in the Land of Almost- Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas where everybody is different and nobody needs to be normal. When Elsa's grandmother dies and leaves behind a series of letters apologizing to people she has wronged, Elsa's greatest adventure begins. Her grandmother's letters lead her to an apartment building full of drunks, monsters, attack dogs, and totally ordinary old crones, but also to the truth about fairytales and kingdoms and a grandmother like no other. Bahari, Maziar Rosewater: A Family's Story of 2011 When Maziar Bahari left London in June 2009 to cover Iran’s presidential election, he Love, Captivity, and Survival assured his pregnant fiancée, Paola, that he’d be back in just a few days, a week at most. Little did he know, as he kissed her good-bye, that he would spend the next three months in Iran’s most notorious prison, enduring brutal interrogation sessions at the hands of a man he knew only by his smell: Rosewater. A riveting, heart-wrenching memoir, Rosewater offers insight into the past seventy years of regime change in Iran, as well as the future of a country where the democratic impulses of the youth continually clash with a government that becomes more totalitarian with each passing day. An intimate and fascinating account of contemporary Iran, it is also the moving and wonderfully written story of one family’s extraordinary courage in the face of repression. Banks, Russell The Sweet Hereafter 1992 Banks tells a story that begins with a school bus accident. Using four different narrators, he creates a small town morality play that addresses one of life's most agonizing questions: when the worst thing happens, who do you blame? Author Title Date Summary Barker, Kim The Taliban Shuffle 2012 When Kim Barker first arrived in Kabul as a journalist in 2002,, she had only recently acquired a passport, spoke only English, and had little idea how to do the "Taliban Shuffle" between Afghanistan and Pakistan. No matter-her stories about Islamic militants and shaky reconstruction were soon overshadowed by the bigger news in Iraq. But as she delved deeper into Pakistan and Afghanistan, her love for the hapless countries grew, along with her fear for their future stability.