In a remote corner of the world, forgotten for nearly three thousand years, lived an enclave of Kurdish Jews so isolated that they still spoke Aramaic, the language of Jesus. Mostly illiterate, they were self-made mystics and gifted storytellers and humble peddlers who dwelt in harmony with their Muslim and Christian neighbors in the mountains of northern Iraq. To these descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, Yona Sabar was born. Yona's son Ariel grew up in Los Angeles, where Yona had become an esteemed professor, dedicating his career to preserving his people’s traditions. Ariel wanted nothing to do with his father’s strange immigrant heritage—until he had a son of his own. Ariel Sabar brings to life the ancient town of Zakho, discovering his family’s place in the sweeping saga of Middle-Eastern history. This powerful book is an improbable story of tolerance and hope set in what today is the very center of the world’s attention.

This riveting national bestseller is an intimate, uncompromising account of personal and political transformation, documenting David Horowitz's journey from 1960s radical to 1990s conservative. "One of the best political memoirs I have ever read".--P.J. O'Rourke. of photos.

"One of the first great events in Christian history was the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, convened to organize Christian sects and beliefs into a unified doctrine. The great Christian clergymen who wrote before this famous event are referred to as the Ante-Nicenes and the Apostolic Fathers, and their writings are collected here in a ten-volume set. The Ante-Nicenes lived so close to the time of Christ that their interpretations of the New Testament are considered more authentic than modern voices. But they are also real and flawed men, who are more like their fellow Christians than they are like the Apostles, making their words echo in the ears of spiritual seekers. In Volume VIII of the 10-volume collected works of the Ante-Nicenes first published between 1885 and 1896, readers will find a collection of ancient writings, including The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts of Theodotus, Two Epistles Concerning Virginity, the writings of Pseudo-Clement, the Apocryphal books of the New Testament, The Decretals, the memoirs of Edessa, and various fragments of writings from the second and third centuries. Many of the authors of these works are unknown, but the works themselves have been greatly influential."

Weaving a fascinating dialogue between the Old World as represented by Provence and the New World of the postmodern American university, this memoir describes in finely wrought detail a poet and critic of literary postmodernism moving his family to France and experiencing village life. Stories of amazing adjustments to a wildly different world are etched in beautiful prose, reading like a quest novel, a precise travelogue, an intense discourse on the visionary arts, and a rediscovery--if not reinvention--of the self as this contemporary American intellectual finds enlightenment in exile.

The author was born in 1940 and spent his childhood in two small villages, the paternal and the maternal, in southern Vietnam: Binh Chuan and Tuy An (An Phu). The villages were deeply affected by the powerful political events of the next fifty years. In this memoir (first sentence: "I was born as the Japanese Troops were invading northern Vietnam"), the author writes of what he saw, heard and knew, providing an invaluable social history of the country. Readers will learn about a people who have endured separation, dictatorship, carnage, persistent suffering and poverty, all the while yearning for independence and prosperity. Included are many stories--some funny, some heartbreaking--that reveal how the Vietnamese people lived, as well as their thoughts on war, on the French, Japanese and Americans, on the Nationalist and Communist governments, and on escape. The result is a heartfelt "social painting" of the nation.

Subject: Autobiography. Escape from Paradise is a contemporary and true woman?s story set in Singapore, Brunei, Australia, England, and the United States. It involves Singapore?s famous Tiger Balm family, and a wealthy and mysterious family from Brunei?and the link between them, a young Singaporean woman, May Chu Lee. From its first paragraph, the book draws the reader into the ambiance of a cosmopolitan Asia never touched upon by any other book ?

Sitt Zubaida’s idyllic childhood on the al-Ajami Beach in Jaffa is nothing short of paradise. She spends her days with her loving family and with the enchanting sea, and spends her nights reading novels, immersing herself in stories of romance. But Sitt Zubaida’s world is changed with the arrival of the Palestinian Nakba in 1948, and her paradise is lost forever. The girl and her family join the more than 750,000 Palestinian Arabs displaced from their homes. Due to the tumultuous Israel-Palestine conflict, Sitt Zubaida and her family move from home to home, city to city, and country to country, causing years of anguish as she reflects on what was and yearns to return to her paradise. The partly autobiographical, partly fictionalized narrative of daily life and family traditions before and after the Nakba is interspersed with nostalgic memories and emotional reflections. Sitt Zubaida’s story captures the deeply human experience of loss and displacement, combined with a love and longing that can never be extinguished. A Girl’s Paradise Lost shines a humanizing light on the personal and social impact of a tragedy too often ignored in political accounts of historic Palestine and portrayals of Palestinians as either victims or terrorists.