Steve Schale

In January 2002 Rory Stewart walked across Afghanistan-surviving by his wits, his knowledge of Persian dialects and Muslim customs, and the kindness of strangers. By day he passed through mountains covered in nine feet of snow, hamlets burned and emptied by the Taliban, and communities thriving amid the remains of medieval civilizations. By night h...

The Children is Halberstam's moving evocation of the early days of the civil rights movement, as seen thru the story of the young people--the Children--who met in the 60s & went on to lead the revolution. Magisterial in scope, with a strong you-are-there quality, The Children is a story one of America's preeminent journalists has waited years to wr...

To save ancient Arabic texts from Al Qaeda, a band of librarians pulls off a brazen heist worthy of Ocean’s Eleven in this “fast-paced narrative that is…part intellectual history, part geopolitical tract, and part out-and-out thriller” (The Washington Post).In the 1980s, a young adventurer and collector for a government library, Abdel Kader Haidara...

A deeply moving memoir about the year that would forever change both a family and a country.In November 2014, thirteen members of the Biden family gathered on Nantucket for Thanksgiving, a tradition they had been celebrating for the past forty years; it was the one constant in what had become a hectic, scrutinized, and overscheduled life. The Thank...