Indelible portraits of people struggling to survive in a war-torn land.
A moving history through Afghan eyes.
Seierstad, an award-winning Norwegian journalist and the author of The Bookseller of Kabul, chronicles Afghanistan’s long history of fending off invaders but emphasizes the period after 1990 when, having expelled the USSR, it descended into a civil war that was finally won by the Taliban, a fundamentalist Islamic movement. Osama bin Laden moved to Afghanistan in 1996. The governing Taliban was not involved in 9/11, but the Bush administration made a fatal error by making no distinction between it and al-Qaeda. Taliban leadership refused the U.S. demand to hand over bin Laden but offered to compromise by expelling him to another Islamic nation. Proclaiming that America would never yield to the “bad guys,” President Bush ordered an invasion that quickly defeated Taliban forces, who did not stay defeated. This is not news to most readers, but Seierstad’s account of three Afghans who lived through these events delivers a fascinating if ultimately painful experience. Bashir, whose father died fighting the Russians in 1987, realized his childhood ambition to become a fighter after the American invasion. He spent 20 years in combat, then led other fighters in small-scale actions that occasionally killed a few Americans, yet they suffered plenty of deaths themselves. After victory, he discovers that he dislikes the tedious life of an administrator but never doubts that the good guys won. Polio rendered Jamila unmarriageable but lessened her father’s opposition to female schooling. She excelled and entered the American-supported government as an advocate of female education, but eventually she was forced to flee her native country, becoming a refugee. A member of a prosperous but conservative family, Ariana needed just one more semester to obtain a law degree when the Taliban expelled women from schools. For her protection, her family forced her to marry.
Indelible portraits of people struggling to survive in a war-torn land.Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2025
ISBN: 9781639736263
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
A dauntless, moving account of a kidnapping and the horrors that followed.
Enduring the unthinkable.
This memoir—the first by an Israeli taken captive by Hamas on October 7, 2023—chronicles the 491 days the author was held in Gaza. Confined to tunnels beneath war-ravaged streets, Sharabi was beaten, humiliated, and underfed. When he was finally released in February, he learned that Hamas had murdered his wife and two daughters. In the face of scarcely imaginable loss, Sharabi has crafted a potent record of his will to survive. The author’s ordeal began when Hamas fighters dragged him from his home, in a kibbutz near Gaza. Alongside others, he was held for months at a time in filthy subterranean spaces. He catalogs sensory assaults with novelistic specificity. Iron shackles grip his ankles. Broken toilets produce an “unbearable stink,” and “tiny white worms” swarm his toothbrush. He gets one meal a day, his “belly caving inward.” Desperate for more food, he stages a fainting episode, using a shaving razor to “slice a deep gash into my eyebrow.” Captors share their sweets while celebrating an Iranian missile attack on Israel. He and other hostages sneak fleeting pleasures, finding and downing an orange soda before a guard can seize it. Several times, Sharabi—51 when he was kidnapped—gives bracing pep talks to younger compatriots. The captives learn to control what they can, trading family stories and “lift[ing] water bottles like dumbbells.” Remarkably, there’s some levity. He and fellow hostages nickname one Hamas guard “the Triangle” because he’s shaped like a SpongeBob SquarePants character. The book’s closing scenes, in which Sharabi tries to console other hostages’ families while learning the worst about his own, are heartbreaking. His captors “are still human beings,” writes Sharabi, bravely modeling the forbearance that our leaders often lack.
A dauntless, moving account of a kidnapping and the horrors that followed.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780063489790
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Harper Influence/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.
Portraits in a post-pandemic world.
After the Covid-19 lockdowns left New York City’s streets empty, many claimed that the city was “gone forever.” It was those words that inspired Stanton, whose previous collections include Humans of New York (2013), Humans of New York: Stories (2015), and Humans (2020), to return to the well once more for a new love letter to the city’s humanity and diversity. Beautifully laid out in hardcover with crisp, bright images, each portrait of a New Yorker is accompanied by sparse but potent quotes from Stanton’s interviews with his subjects. Early in the book, the author sequences three portraits—a couple laughing, then looking serious, then the woman with tears in her eyes—as they recount the arc of their relationship, transforming each emotional beat of their story into an affecting visual narrative. In another, an unhoused man sits on the street, his husky eating out of his hand. The caption: “I’m a late bloomer.” Though the pandemic isn’t mentioned often, Stanton focuses much of the book on optimistic stories of the post-pandemic era. Among the most notable profiles is Myles Smutney, founder of the Free Store Project, whose story of reclaiming boarded‑up buildings during the lockdowns speaks to the city’s resilience. In reusing the same formula from his previous books, the author confirms his thesis: New York isn’t going anywhere. As he writes in his lyrical prologue, “Just as one might dive among coral reefs to marvel at nature, one can come to New York City to marvel at humanity.” The book’s optimism paints New York as a city where diverse lives converge in moments of beauty, joy, and collective hope.
A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781250277589
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
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