Unbroken (Biography)
by Laura Hillenbrand
473 pages
Synopsis: A biography of World War II hero Louis Zamperini. As a boy, Louis had been an incorrigible delinquent but as a teenager he channeled his defiance into running, discovering a talent that carried him to the Berlin Olympics and within sight of the four-minute mile. When WWII came, he became an airman. Shot down over the Pacific he survived thirst, starvation, and sharks on a foundering raft. Captured by the Japanese, he survived for more than two and half years in several brutal Japanese internment camps as a prisoner of war.His story is a story of the resilience of the human mind, body, and spirit.
Synopsis: When her father and brother had to flee Kabul, Kamila Sidiqui had to find a way to survive under Taliban rule. With nothing but an idea and the tenacity to see it through, she started a home business with her sisters that grew to support the finances of an entire neighborhood. Without any sewing skills to begin with, she learned to sew and she and her sisters worked from their home in the Khair Khana area of Kabul. As orders for dresses and pant suits started to increase, so did demand for additional pairs of hands. Soon, word got out about the business, and women from all over the area came knocking on their door. What started out as Kamila's idea to feed her own family turned into a source of income for other women in her community.
NOTE: Hardcover only ($13.99 from Amazon.com / $14.67 from BN.com).
The Dressmaker of Khair Khana (Non-Fiction)
by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
288 pages
Synopsis: When her father and brother had to flee Kabul, Kamila Sidiqui had to find a way to survive under Taliban rule. With nothing but an idea and the tenacity to see it through, she started a home business with her sisters that grew to support the finances of an entire neighborhood. Without any sewing skills to begin with, she learned to sew and she and her sisters worked from their home in the Khair Khana area of Kabul. As orders for dresses and pant suits started to increase, so did demand for additional pairs of hands. Soon, word got out about the business, and women from all over the area came knocking on their door. What started out as Kamila's idea to feed her own family turned into a source of income for other women in her community.After the American invasion and the fall of the Taliban, Kamila set up a women's center in Kabul that offered literacy classes and vocational courses.
NOTE: Paperback release scheduled for 3/20/12.
Synopsis: In the final days of World War II, 24 soldiers and WACs boarded a transport plane for a sightseeing trip over a newly discovered valley deep within the jungle-covered mountains of Dutch New Guinea populated by thousands of spear-carrying tribesmen, rumored to be cannibals.
Owing to a lethal combination of foolishness and inexperience, the plane crashed, killing all aboard except two soldiers and a WAC. They faced certain death unless they left the crash site because the jungle canopy was so dense no rescue plane could see them. Wounded and in pain, the trio made a harrowing trip down the steep mountainside to a small clearing where they thought a rescue plane could see them. Their clearing turned out to be a sweet potato patch of a primitive tribe of superstitious natives who had never before seen a white person. This is a fascinating true story of one of the final first-contacts in human history.
Lost in Shangri-La (Non-Fiction)
by Mitchell Zuckoff
400 pages
Synopsis: In the final days of World War II, 24 soldiers and WACs boarded a transport plane for a sightseeing trip over a newly discovered valley deep within the jungle-covered mountains of Dutch New Guinea populated by thousands of spear-carrying tribesmen, rumored to be cannibals.Owing to a lethal combination of foolishness and inexperience, the plane crashed, killing all aboard except two soldiers and a WAC. They faced certain death unless they left the crash site because the jungle canopy was so dense no rescue plane could see them. Wounded and in pain, the trio made a harrowing trip down the steep mountainside to a small clearing where they thought a rescue plane could see them. Their clearing turned out to be a sweet potato patch of a primitive tribe of superstitious natives who had never before seen a white person. This is a fascinating true story of one of the final first-contacts in human history.
A search plane located them and dropped food, medicines, blankets, and a walkie-talkie. Paratroopers risked their own lives to help the survivors. But with no place to land an airplane, the mountain air too thin for helicopters, and the threat of thousands of hostile Japanese soldiers hiding between the injured group and the sea, Army commanders grappled with how to rescue the survivors and the paratroopers.
NOTE: Paperback release scheduled for 5/1/12.
