| Alinejad is the creator of the social media movement My Stealthy Freedom, which encourages women to defy Iran's compulsory hijab laws by sharing photographs of themselves without their head scarves.
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Robin by Dave Itzkoff A compelling portrait of one of America's most beloved and misunderstood entertainers. From his rapid-fire stand-up comedy riffs to his breakout role in Mork & Mindy and his powerful Academy Award-winning performance in Good Will Hunting, Robin Williams was a singularly innovative actor and comedian. He often came across as a man possessed, holding forth on culture, politics, and personal revelation. But as Dave Itzkoff shows in this revelatory biography, Williams's comic brilliance masked a deep well of conflicting emotions and self-doubt which affected him in ways his fans never knew.
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Butterfly : From Refugee to Olympian - My Story of Rescue, Hope, and Triumph by Yusra Mardini Yusra Mardini fled her native Syria to the Turkish coast in 2015 and boarded a small dinghy full of refugees bound for Greece. When the small and overcrowded boat's engine cut out, it began to sink. Yusra, her sister and two others took to the water, pushing the boat for three and a half hours in open water until they eventually landed on Lesbos, saving the lives of the passengers aboard. This is the story of that remarkable woman, whose journey started in a war-torn suburb of Damascus and took her through Europe to Berlin and from there to the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. Yusra Mardini is an athlete, one of People magazine's 25 women changing the world, a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador and one of Time Magazine's 30 most influential teens of 2016.
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Iris Apfel : Accidental Icon by Iris ApfelLavishly photographed with previously unpublished images and mementos, including some by leading fashion photographers and artists, a collection of observations and anecdotes by the nonagenarian fashion icon traces her co-founding of Old World Weavers, her boundary-breaking art shows and her influential legacy.
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Focus on: Prisoners and Captivity |
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| The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State by Nadia MuradThe raw yet inspiring story of Nadia Murad's escape from captivity by the Islamic State, for whom she was forced to serve as a "sabiya" (or sex slave) after her Yazidi village in Iraq was destroyed in 2014.
Nadia Murad is a Nobel Peace Prize nominee and the United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking. |
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Redeemable : A Memoir of Darkness and Hope
by Erwin James
Born in Somerset in 1957 to itinerant Scottish parents, Erwin James lost his mother when he was seven. Shipped from home to home and subject to the whims of various caregivers after his father turned to alcohol and violence, he committed his first crime of breaking and entering when he was ten. His teenage and early adult years were spent drifting, and his petty crime turned increasingly violent, culminating in the terrible events for which he was jailed for life in 1984. Entering prison at 27, James struggled to come to terms with the enormity of his crimes and a future without purpose or hope. Then he met Joan, a prison psychologist, who helped him to confront the painful truth of his past, and to understand how it had shaped him from such a young age.
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Out of Orange: A Memoir
by Cleary Wolters
Fans of the Netflix show Orange is the New Black (based on Piper Kerman's memoir by the same title) will remember a character called Alex Vause. In Out of Orange, author Cleary Wolters (the model for Alex) depicts her foolish involvement in the international drug trade, her conviction, her life in prison, and her eventual adjustment to freedom. In this affecting memoir, Wolters expresses the hope that reading it will deter others from making similar mistakes.
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Prisoner X
by Rafael Epstein
The true story behind the intriguing but ultimately tragic story of Ben Zygier: son, soldier, spy. The urgent phone call comes from behind the barbed wire. 'This is Ayalon prison,' says one of the guards urgently. 'Listen, he hanged himself, we need an ambulance.' Prisoner X, just 34 years old, was slumped in a small bathroom, separated from his cell by a transparent door. Kept in one of the most technologically sophisticated solitary jail cells, at the behest of one of the world's most feared intelligence agencies, it is not easy to kill yourself. But Ben Zygier managed to do just that. Did he work for Mossad? Was he also working for ASIO? Was he involved in the supply of false passports? Was he a whistle blower or double agent, or simply a young man way out of his depth? In Prisoner X Rafael Epstein uncovers the intriguing story of a young Australian swept up in international intelligence.
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A Sliver of Light: Three Americans Imprisoned in Iran by Shane Bauer, Josh Fattal, and Sarah ShourdAmericans Shane Bauer, Josh Fattal, and Sarah Shourd were hiking on vacation near the border between Iraq and Iran in 2009 when they were captured by Iranian soldiers and accused of illegally entering Iranian territory. Despite urgently explaining that they thought they were in Iraq, and that they weren't spies, they were locked up; Iran's government turned their accidental border crossing into a prolonged international incident. This gripping joint memoir details their arrest, the conditions in prison, and their families' and government's campaign for their release.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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