New Releases
Breakfast at Tiffany`s -by Truman Capote
The well-known short novel, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and three of Truman Capote's most famous short stories make for a continually fresh and exciting look at how human beings successfully connect with one another. No matter how many times you read these stories, you will be moved by Mr. Capote's marvelous sense of and appreciation for the specialness of each life and the ways we belong to each other. The book is a great example of American contemporary literature.
Truman Capote was born in New Orleans in 1925 and was raised in various parts of the south, his family spending winters in New Orleans and summers in Alabama and Georgia. He is the author of many highly praised books, including A Tree of Night and Other Stories (1949), The Grass Harp (1951), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958), In Cold Blood (1965), which immediately became the centre of a storm of controversy on its publication, Music for Chameleons (1980) and Answered Prayers (1986), all of which are published by Penguin. Truman Capote died in August 1984.
Toni Morrison: Great American Writer- by Lisa Rohdes
The book offers a good short biography for Toni Morrison (born February 18, 1931 in Lorain, Ohio). She is a Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, editor, and professor. Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, and richly detailed black characters. Among her best known novels are The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon and Beloved. She has won nearly every book prize possible, and has been awarded honorary degrees.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn- by Betty Smith
Francie Nolan, avid reader, penny-candy connoisseur, and adroit observer of human nature, has much to ponder in colorful, turn-of-the-century Brooklyn. She grows up with a sweet, tragic father, a severely realistic mother, and to a brother who will always be the favored child. Francie learns early the meaning of hunger and the value of a penny. She is her father's child--romantic and hungry for beauty. But she is her mother's child, too--deeply practical and in constant need of truth. Like the Tree of Heaven that grows out of cement or through cellar gratings, resourceful Francie struggles against all odds to survive and thrive. Betty Smith's poignant, honest novel created a big stir when it was first published over 50 years ago. Her frank writing about life's squalor was alarming to some of the more genteel society, but the book's humor and pathos ensured its place in the realm of classics--and in the hearts of readers, young and old. (Ages 10 and older)
Rain Water Harvesting in Dry Lands and Beyond- by Brad Lancaster
This is the first of a three-volume guide on how to conceptualize, design, and implement sustainable water-harvesting systems for your home, landscape, and community. This book enables you to assess your on-site resources, gives you a diverse array of strategies to maximize their potential, and empowers you with guiding principles to create an integrated, multi-functional water-harvesting plan specific to your site and needs. This volume helps bring your site to life, reduce your cost of living, endow you with skills of self-reliance, and create living air conditioners of vegetation growing beauty, food, and wildlife habitat. Stories of people who are successfully welcoming rain into their life and landscape will invite you to do the same!
Brad Lancaster has taught, designed, and consulted on the sustainable design system of permaculture and integrated rainwater harvesting systems since 1993. He lives on the thriving 1/8th-acre urban permaculture site he created in downtown Tucson, Arizona.
The Rise of Global Civil Society: Building Communities and Nations from the Bottom Up by Don Eberly
The Rise of Global Civil Society: Building Communities and Nations from the Bottom Up presents a sweeping overview of the forces now shaping the global debate, including citizen-led development projects, poverty-reduction strategies that substitute opportunity for charity, and electronically linked movements to combat corruption and autocratic rule. Civil society, once the distinctive characteristic of American democracy, is now advancing across the globe, carrying with it new forms of philanthropy, citizenship, and volunteerism. Tens of thousands of voluntary associations are prying open closed societies from within, solving problems in new ways, and forming the seedbed for a long-term cultivation of democratic norms.
The Color of My Words- by Lynne Joseph
Twelve-year-old Ana Rosa is a blossoming writer growing up in the Dominican Republic, a country where words are feared. Yet there is so much inspiration all around her -- watching her brother search for a future, learning to dance and to love, and finding out what it means to be part of a community -- that Ana Rosa must write it all down. As she struggles to find her own voice and a way to make it heard, Ana Rosa realizes the power of her words to transform the world around her -- and to transcend the most unthinkable of tragedies.
The Inheritance of Exile- by Susan Muaddi Darraj
In the book, Darraj makes a capable debut with this collection that follows Palestinian-American émigré families in South Philadelphia. Darraj succeeds admirably in suggesting the diversity of Palestinian-Americans: the four friends Nadia, Aliyah, Hanan and Reema each comes from a family with its own story of exile. Nadia's mother, a doctor's daughter, discovers in "The New World" that the mysterious "tall, slim blonde woman" whom she nicknames "Homewrecker Barbie" was her husband's former green-card wife. Aliya spends "An Afternoon in Jerusalem" at the Dome of the Rock where a hijab-wearing woman, noticing her crucifix, welcomes her in and shows her how to wrap her hair. After suffering the patronizing attitudes of her husband John's parents and graduate school colleagues, Hanan makes "The Journey Home," reconciling with her parents and practicing her mother's craft, basket making, with commercial success.
Ode to the Aud- by Yousef Kumanyaka
The anthology includes poems that talk about Kumanyaka’s experiences such as growing up as a poor child on the side of the Pearl River (Mississippi), how he was influenced by Martin Luther King’s civil rights movement, serving in the Vietnam War and his tours in a number of American states. The collection includes over fifty poems of Kumanyaka’s most notable work. Komunyakaa is the recipient of the 2011 Wallace Stevens Award. His other honors include the William Faulkner Prize from the Université de Rennes, the Thomas Forcade Award, the Hanes Poetry Prize, fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Louisiana Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He was elected a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets in 1999. He has taught at University of New Orleans, Indiana University, as a professor in the Council of Humanities and Creative Writing Program at Princeton University. He lives in New York City where he is currently Distinguished Senior Poet in New York University'sgraduate creative writing program.
The Feminist Theory: A Reader by Wendy Kolmar and Frances Bartkowski
The book is an essential reading for everyone and anyone interested in the history of women's struggles throughout American History. It is a good text book for women’s studies at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. The Arabic translation was finalized in cooperation with the Jordanian Women’s Studies Center to adapt the language of the book to the region’s needs.
Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher and William Ury
This landmark book shows practical ways to find out what other people want, and to devise better alternatives that create a "win" for everyone. The authors do a great job of overcoming the preconception that many hold that working on problems means that you have to be unpleasant. The advice to be hard on the problems and easy on the people (building a relationship) is a key concept that everyone can use.
For those who need help winning battles, Roger Fisher has developed a simple and straightforward five-step system for how to behave in negotiations. Narrated soothingly by NPR announcer Bob Edwards, Fisher adds the meaty portions of the material with a sense of playfulness.
The Ballad of Frankie Silver by Sharyn McCrumb
The Ballad of Frankie Silver is two stories, one true and one fiction, woven together through mystery and similarity. The one story is the story of Sheriff Spencer Arrowood and someone whom he arrested long ago who is due to be executed. While he is stuck at home recuperating from a bullet wound, he starts thinking about the trial of Frankie Silver and starts researching the case. He believes that there is some similarity between the Frankie Silver case and the case of the man about to be executed. The second story goes back in time to the true story of Frankie Silver. It's told mostly from the point of view of a clerk of the court at the time of the Silver trial..
NEW TACTICS IN HUMAN RIGHTS: A RESOURCE FOR PRACTITIONERS, by the Center for Victims of Torture
This workbook is a compilation of innovative tactics that provide a conceptual framework for thinking strategically and tactically about human rights. The core of the book is 100 stories gathered from around the world and across numerous sectors about human rights work. These stories are analyzed within a tactical context-in terms of resources needed, obstacles encountered and the problem being addressed. The ABP is proud to introduce the Arabic version of this universal initiative and make it available for human rights organizations and practitioners throughout the Arab region.
THE MEDIATION PROCESS: PRACTICAL STRATEGIES FOR RESOLVING CONFLICT, by Christopher W. Moore
Since it was first published in 1986, THE MEDIATION PROCESS has become a landmark resource for mediation practitioners, trainers, students, and professionals in corporate, legal, health care, education, and governmental arenas. This thoroughly revised and expanded third edition has been updated to include coverage of the most contemporary issues in mediation practice and to provide updated bibliographical resources.
SELECTED INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS INSTRUMENTS AND HUMAN RIGHTS LAW, by David Weissbrodt and Frank Newman
This book is a valuable compilation for Arabic audiences of the major international and regional human rights instruments, legislations and other U.S. and United Nations documents. This is an important reference book for law students, law and human rights practitioners, human rights organizations and the general public. This reference guide can serve as a basic component in any university or NGO library in the region.
POSITIVE APPROACHES TO PEACE-BUILDING: A RESOURCE FOR INNOVATORS, edited by Cynthia Sampson, Mohammed Abu-Nimer, Claudia Liebler, Diana Whintey
The book is a bold invitation to peace-builders to consider new approaches - "positive approaches" - to transforming conflict and building peace in some of the most complex of human situations. It is a call to shift from focusing predominantly on the conflict, struggle, and suffering to also shining light on cooperation, coexistence, and visions for a better future. The hope of the contributors is that these ideas will be useful and will capture the imagination of readers who will apply them, adapt them further, and go far beyond them in innovating with positive approaches to peace-building. The book is valuable because of its varied examples and stories that can be easily understood within the context of Arab culture.
EMPLOYMENT WITH A HUMAN FACE, by John W. Budd
ontradicting the traditional view of the employment relationship as a purely economic transaction, with business wanting efficiency and workers wanting income, the author argues that equity and voice are equally important objectives. Budd proposes a fresh set of objectives for modern democracies- efficiency, equity, and voice -and supports this new triad with an intellectual framework for analyzing employment institutions and practices. The book is based on practical experience and is written in a simple style.
GUNS, GERMS AND STEEL, by Jared Diamond
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, this title is a brilliant work answering the question of why the peoples of certain continents succeeded in invading other continents and conquering or displacing their peoples. GUNS, GERMS AND STEEL is of great value to scholars and readers in general of different ages interested in world history and cultural progress.
BROADCAST NEWS, by Mitchell Stephens
This book covers every aspect of broadcast journalism, including writing, reporting, and production. It provides journalists with many basic tools to help them succeed. Clear and well-organized discussions and explanations, suggestions from professional journalists, and actual, real-world examples are just a few of the features that make learning easy. This book can be used to create training programs for journalists. Copies could be presented as gifts to PA section contacts in the media industry.