"In the days before Homeira Qaderi gave birth to her son, Siawash, the road to the hospital in Kabul would often be barricaded because of the frequent suicide explosions. With the city and the military on edge, it was not uncommon for an armed soldier to point his gun at the pregnant woman's bulging stomach, terrified that she was hiding a bomb. Frightened and in pain, she was once forced to make her way on foot. Propelled by the love she held for...

A comprehensive collection of ecstatic poetry that delights with its energy and passion, The Essential Rumi brings the vibrant, living words of famed thirteenth-century Sufi mystic Jelalludin Rumi to contemporary readers.

From the Publisher: Art across Time combines sound scholarship and lively prose, engaging students with both its narrative and its lavish visual program. Popular with majors and non-majors alike, Art across Time offers readers more than a chronology of art; it discusses political, economic, social, and personal concerns that influence the artists and inform their work, uniquely conveying the ideas, beliefs, and circumstances that inspire creativity....