The Reluctant Fundamentalist: From Book to Film


Mira Nair - 2013
    Covering every aspect of the film-making process, this magnificently designed film book comprises an incredible array of images as well as short essays by those involved in the filmmaking process. Mira Nair discusses how the novel was turned into a screenplay; Mohsin Hamid reminisces about his first experience on a film set; production designer Michael Carlin recounts the thrill of transforming Old Delhi into contemporary Lahore; lead actor Riz Ahmed reveals how he got under the skin of his character Changez; and editor Shimit Amin demystifies some of his tricks on the editing table. This book also features a series of gorgeous black-and-white photographs by celebrated photographer Brigitte Lacombe.‘A pro-America film that dares voice un-American thoughts’—Damon Wise, Empire‘Tense, thoughtful and truly international’—Time

Water from Heaven: An American woman's life as an Arab wife


Anne Schreiber Thomas - 2017
    The year is 1982, and 20-year-old Cindy leaves home and family after her wedding with no idea what awaits her in her new life. Living with his family, immersed in a traditional Arab culture with an incomprehensible language while her new husband is away on a military base during the week, her future with Mohammed depends on the strength of her love, faith, and determination to be true to herself. This true story is told against the backdrop of three decades of profound change in the United Arab Emirates and crises in the Middle East. Beautifully written and moving, Water from Heaven is the story of a truly courageous woman as she adapts to her unexpected new life.

Bear Cat


Raland J. Patterson - 2012
    Every soldier onboard that flight had one goal in common – come back alive. Captain McKay soon finds himself immersed in a war zone with a few good men and very difficult circumstances. Maintaining an aviation battalion when you’re taking fire daily is no easy task and many will lose their lives. Together these men endeavor to do everything possible to look out for each other and the men on the ground fighting an unpopular war. This is the story of untested men working together under diverse and difficult circumstances to be the best that they can be.

Uncovered


Sarah Darabi - 2016
    She was the eldest of eight children in an impoverished, Muslim family. As many as 13 family members slept on a cement floor in a two-room apartment with no furniture and no flush-toilet. She was set upon as a child by the elders of her own family when she refused to cover herself in a burqa. She stood up to agents of the Ayatollah Khomeini when they demanded she spy upon the Swiss Embassy where she was employed. Uncovered is a guided tour of the torturous ordeal of her journey from childhood in Pakistan to her ultimate success in America.

My Crazy World: The Autobiography


Christy Dignam - 2019
      Growing up in Finglas, Dublin, there was only one thing Christy Dignam ever wanted to do – and that was sing. By the early 1980s, he had formed the band Aslan, part of a new wave of acts coming out of Ireland. Repeatedly chewed up and spat out in the feeding frenzy to sign 'the next U2', they stuck to their principles. developed a loyal following, and their first album Feel No Shame went to No 1 in their home country, showcased by the song ‘This Is’, which Christy proudly acknowledges has become 'part of Ireland's DNA'.   But just as America seemed ready to fall for Aslan, Dignam was battling with heroin addiction, perhaps caused by having been sexually abused as a child, and so he was kicked out of the band. In 1993, after five years in the wilderness, he rejoined Aslan, leading the outfit to a triumphant second coming, despite struggling with further drug problems and serious illness. In this compelling memoir, Dignam looks back over his long career, vividly bringing to life the good times and the bad, but always remembering that at the heart of it all are his songs and his family.

Welcome to Islam: A Step-by-Step Guide for New Muslims


Mustafa Umar - 2012
    'Welcome to Islam' is a step-by-step guide to help people who have just accepted Islam. It teaches them the absolute basics of Islam that they should learn within their first month of being a Muslim. This work is not another introductory book on Islam but rather a step-by-step instruction manual that allows you to start practicing what you learn immediately. It also contains valuable advice on some common challenges that new Muslims often face.

Center of Attention: A True Crime Memoir


Jami D. Brown Martin - 2020
    The photo looks completely out of place on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list where it’s been since December, 8, 2007. For eight of those years, Jason appeared directly beside Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden is long gone, but Jason is still wanted for armed robbery and murder.For years, his sister, Jami D. Brown Martin has watched the true crime programs and read the amateur investigative blogs devoted to Jason, his crime, and the efforts to apprehend him knowing the story wasn’t as simple, nor was it just Jason’s. To be the sister, brother, or relative of one of the world’s most wanted men is to live every day with the horrible truth and many consequences of his brutal act.CENTER OF ATTENTION is the story of a former Mormon missionary turned murderer. It is also a riveting look behind the facade of the genetically blessed, seemingly prominent and pious Brown family of Laguna Beach, California. It is a tale of the family patriarch, John Brown, who disappeared without a trace ten years before his son. More important, it is the gripping and ultimately hopeful story of the sister of one of the world’s most wanted fugitives and her journey to accept that despite being a product of the same crazy environment as her brother, her life and path are her own.

Welcome To Dong Tam (Jayhawk Two One Book 1)


Michael Trout - 2014
    This is the first in a series of true stories about a young helicopter pilot’s tour of duty in Vietnam.

The Confessions of a Deliveryman (The Deliveryman Series)


Lee Ball - 2011
    Hidden in the villages and towns of England reside eccentric characters of all types: sex-starved housewives, retired comedians, foul-mouthed parrots, monosyllabic children, troublesome students, even a wife-swapper or two!Twenty two hilarious stories from the world of home delivery taken from Lee's popular The Deliveryman Diaries Blog.

Gravity


Norman Ollestad - 2015
    Anton, a remote village nestled in the glittering and dangerous peaks of the Austrian Alps. There, he befriends the local clique of ski bums and fills his days with endless, exhilarating skiing, and his nights flirting with the prettiest girls at the bars. But in the quiet moments, Norman cannot escape the painful memories of his challenging, adrenaline-addicted father who took him to St. Anton fifteen years earlier, and who died in a terrible plane crash of which Norman, at the age of eleven, was the sole survivor. In Gravity, Ollestad transports us to those thrilling days in the Alps, and reveals how his search to find greater meaning in his rudderless life helped him discover the relationships that make life worth living.Norman Ollestad was born in Los Angeles in 1967 and grew up in Malibu. He studied creative writing at UCLA and attended UCLA’s undergrad Film School. His writing has appeared in Outside, Men’s Journal and Time. He is married and has two children—a son and daughter—and lives in Venice, California.Cover design by Adil Dara

The Purification of the Soul


ابن رجب الحنبلي - 1993
    Topics discussed include: sincerity, the nature of intention, types of heart, the four poisons of the heart, seeking Allah's forgiveness, supplication, praying at night, love of Allah, hope in Allah, fear of Allah and many others.

Stories I've Heard, Characters I've Met, & Lies We've Told in My 44 Alaskan Years


Tom Brion - 2016
    An Off the Grid lodge owner in Fish Lakes, Alaska, Tom enthralls roomfuls of guests every year from the Lower 48 and around the world with tales of his adventures, foibles, and SNAFUs in 44 years living in the Alaskan wilderness. From his start as a Pennsylvania farmboy who ran off to join the United States Air Force, to his arrival in Alaska with less than a hundred dollars in his wallet and a growing family in his back seat, to his forty years as a Bush pilot and his accidental introduction to the fishing lodge business, to his multiple brushes with death, hardship, and questionable characters, Tom Brion has a story to cover it all. A pioneer in sustainable homesteading and off-the-Grid living, Tom Brion built his first lodge in Alaska on five acres in the Lake Creek area, in 1979, and continues to this day building and working heavy machinery 60 miles from any road. Born in 1941, Tom has collected 74 years of humorous, heart-wrenching, and sometimes mind-blowing stories of traveling, hunting, and exploring the backcountry of Alaska in the pilot’s seat of a Vietnam-era Cessna Birddog. A biography in the form of short life stories, Tom Brion’s memoir takes us to a rural Bush life where people live off the land, drill their own wells, put out their own forest fires, and depend on their neighbors to pick up their mail. Surrounded by nature, Tom continues to fly, plow, run his bulldozer, and wrangle his subsistence fishwheel up the river every year in the Skwentna area of Alaska, where temperatures in winter drop to 45 below zero and summers can see entire months without rain. Follow him in this (mostly) nonfiction anthology of (somewhat) true stories from the Last Frontier as he gives the straight scoop about bears, outhouses, farming, flooding, fishing, moose, guns, and aviation in the 49th State.An avid hunter, outdoorsman, fisherman, and jack of all trades, Tom documents his life with photos and illustrations that detail an epic adventure from start to finish.

Struck: A Husband’s Memoir of Trauma and Triumph


Douglas Segal - 2018
    Miraculously, his daughter was unharmed, but his wife faced a series of life-threatening injuries, including the same one that famously left Christopher Reeve paralyzed. Following the accident, Segal began sending regular email updates to their circle of friends and family—a list that continued to grow as others heard of the event and were moved by the many emotional and spiritual issues it raised. Segal's compelling memoir is an intimate and honest chronicle built around these email updates, and is a profound example of how people show up for one another in times of crisis.Alternatingly harrowing, humorous, heartbreaking, and hopeful, this is an uplifting tribute to love, determination, and how the compassion of community holds the power to heal, serving as an inspiring testament to the resilience of the human spirit when faced with pain and adversity.

A Simple Life: Living off grid in a wooden cabin in France


Mary-Jane Houlton - 2021
    They were already used to a simple life, having spent the last three years living on their boat in France for the summer seasons, and returning to the UK and their caravan for the winters. This tiny cabin would now be their new home for the winter months, taking them a step further along the road to self-sufficiency. They had no electricity, no kitchen, no bathroom or bedroom and the loo was a bucket in a shed, but the property came with five acres of field and woodland.From now on their lives would be simple, pared back to the basics, but they found that an off-grid lifestyle was by no means an uncomfortable experience. Responsibilities didn’t disappear but they changed, becoming less onerous. There was more time to think, and to appreciate the natural world around them. Living in such rural isolation, each day brought something new to marvel at: deer browsing in the field at dusk, salamanders on the doorstep, owls calling by night.If their own world felt increasingly magical, the outside world was far from it. They had moved to a foreign country at an historic time, living through a pandemic and adapting to the day-to-day implications of Brexit.A Simple Life doesn’t just follow Mary-Jane and Michael as they settle into their new lives, it also raises questions about what really matters to people. What makes us happy? How does it feel to have few possessions? Will life become unbearable without a flushing toilet?Thought-provoking and amusing, this book opens a window onto a different way of living. Mary-Jane shares a wealth of information and, if you have ever found yourself longing for a simpler life, this might tempt you to take those first tentative steps on the journey.

Clean: A story of addiction, recovery and the removal of stubborn stains


Michele Kirsch - 2019
    And yet, when she finally does have something like that life, as a wife and mother in 1980s London, she is the one blaring music from her room, necking vodka and valium and making an almighty mess of her home and family.Cleaning other people’s houses, eventually, is the only option left. At 50 years old, post rehab, living alone in a Hackney bedsit, Michele finds herself finishing her working life as she had begun, “in a dumb job that you do when you can’t really do anything else...”This is a remarkable, powerful, and often unbearably funny memoir in which cleaning and getting clean intertwine as a strange and magical form of redemption. Michele Kirsch is a Nora Ephron for the modern age.