Arcadia Public Library

"In her fourth work of fiction, Sue Monk Kidd brings her acclaimed narrative gifts to imagine the story of a young woman named Ana. Raised in a wealthy family in Sepphoris with ties to the ruler of Galilee, she is rebellious and ambitious, a relentless seeker with a brilliant, curious mind and a daring spirit. She yearns for a pursuit worthy of her life, but finds no outlet for her considerable talents. Defying the expectations placed on women, she...

A history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict told from the Palestinian perspective, arguing the period since the Balfour Declaration of 1917 has amounted to a hundred years of colonial war against the Palestinians.

Draws on the Bible and secular historical research to present a fictional portrait of Mary of Magdala as she becomes part of Jesus' circle of disciples and comes into a realization of her faith.

An illustrated introduction to one hundred vocational options available during the Iron Age, describing the duties and responsibilities of date pickers, provincial governors, stone masons, sandal makers, pirates, oarsmen, and other occupations.

In tracing the roots of his own family, Laskin captures the epic sweep of the twentieth century. He honors the traditions, the lives, and the choices of his ancestors: revolutionaries and entrepreneurs, scholars and farmers, tycoons and truck drivers. In doing so he creates a deeply personal, dramatic, and emotional account of people caught in a cataclysmic time in world history.

"From the internationally bestselling author of the "terrifically affecting" (The Philadelphia Inquirer) Mornings in Jenin, a sweeping and lyrical novel that follows a young Palestinian refugee as she slowly becomes radicalized while searching for a better life for her family throughout the Middle East."--

"A gripping historical novel of sex, love, and justice in the tinderbox of British Mandate Palestine, by the acclaimed author of A Palestine Affair In 1933, Ivor Castle, an Oxford-educated Jew, arrives in Palestine to take up a position as assistant to the defense counsel for the two men accused of murdering Haim Arlosoroff, a figure whose tactics to get Jews out of Hitler's Germany and into Palestine were controversial enough to get him killed. Ivor,...

A ragtag unit known as the Arab Section was conceived during World War II by British spies and Jewish militia leaders in Palestine. Intended to gather intelligence and carry out sabotage operations, the unit consisted of Jews who were native to the Arab world and could thus easily assume Arab identities. In 1948, with Israel's existence hanging in the balance, these men went undercover in Beirut, operating out of a newsstand, collecting intelligence...

Daring and original stories set in New Testament times, from a rising young Norwegian author Lars Petter Sveen's Children of God recounts the lives of people on the margins of the New Testament; thieves, Roman soldiers, prostitutes, lepers, healers, and the occasional disciple all get a chance to speak. With language free of judgment or moralizing, Sveen covers familiar ground in unusual ways. In the opening story, a group of soldiers are tasked with...

"Hundreds of Palestinian villages were left empty across Israel when their residents became refugees after the 1948 war. Most of these villages were razed by the new State of Israel, their lands and property confiscated, but in dozens of others, communities of Jews were settled--many refugees in their own right. The state embarked upon a systematic effort of renaming and remaking the landscape, and the Arab presence was erased from official maps and...