Cold Weather Blues? Curl up with a book!

Cold Weather Blues? Curl up with a book!

Campus is full of students bundled in mittens and scarves scurrying about as they desperately try to avoid the blustery wind and swirling snowflakes. Winter has officially arrived in Madison Wisconsin, whether we are ready or not. The rest of the week promises chilly temperatures, and by the end you’ll likely be craving a steaming cup of cocoa and the chance to curl up with a warm blanket and a new book. If you enjoyed this year’s Go Big Read book, I Am Malala, then you will want to consider choosing one of the books below that cover similar themes, regions, and topics. All of the books are available in campus libraries, you can discover the location by clicking on the linked titles. The Underground Girls of Kabul: In Search of a Hidden Resistance in Afghanistan by Jenny Nordberg An award-winning foreign correspondent who contributed to a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times series reveals the secret Afghan custom of disguising girls as boys to improve their prospects, discussing its political and social significance as well as the experiences of its practitioners. Tears of the Desert: A memoir of survival in Darfur by Halim Bashir with Damien Lewis Born into the Zaghawa tribe in the Sudanese desert, Halima Bashir received a good education away from her rural surroundings and at twenty-four became her village’s first formal doctor. Yet not even Bashir’s degree could protect her from the encroaching conflict that would consume her homeland. Janjaweed Arab militias savagely assaulted the Zaghawa, often with the backing of the Sudanese military. Then, in early 2004, the Janjaweed attacked Bashir’s village and surrounding areas, raping forty-two schoolgirls and their teachers. Bashir, who treated the traumatized victims, some as young as eight years old, could no longer remain quiet. But breaking her silence ignited a horrifying turn of events. A woman among warlords: the extraordinary story of an Afghan who dared to raise her voice by Malalai Joya with Derrick O’Keefe An extraordinary young woman raised in the refugee camps of Iran and Pakistan, Joya became a teacher in secret girls’ schools, hiding her books under her burqa so the Taliban couldn’t find them; she helped establish a free medical clinic and orphanage in her impoverished home province of Farah; and at a constitutional assembly in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 2003, she stood up and denounced her country’s powerful NATO-backed warlords. She was twenty-five years old. Two years later, she became the youngest person elected to Afghanistan’s new Parliament. In 2007, she was suspended from Parliament for her persistent criticism of the warlords and drug barons and their cronies. She has survived four assassination attempts to date, is accompanied at all times by armed guards, and sleeps only in safe houses.

In the name of honor: a memoir by Mukhtar Mai with Marie-Therese Cuny; translated by Lind Coverdale; foreword by Nicholas D. Kristof

Mukhtar Mai, a Pakistani woman, was gang raped as a punishment for indiscretions allegedly committed by the women’s brother. However, Mai fought back and changed the feminist movement in Pakistan, one of the world’s most adverse climates for women. Mai was awarded money from the government and she used it to open a school for girls so that future generations would not suffer, as she had, from illiteracy.