This week Kim and Alice talk about books by Arab women writers, plus new nonfiction about gene patents, colonialism in the 1860s, and medieval manuscripts.

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Nonfiction in the News

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New Nonfiction

The Gilded Page: The Secret Lives of Medieval Manuscripts by Mary Wellesley

The Last Emperor of Mexico: The Dramatic Story of the Habsburg Archduke Who Created a Kingdom in the New World by Edward Shawcross

Concepcion: An Immigrant Family’s Fortunes by Albert Samaha

Best Wishes, Warmest Regards: The Story of Schitt’s Creek by Daniel Levy, Eugene Levy

The Genome Defense: Inside the Epic Legal Battle to Determine Who Owns Your DNA by Jorge L. Contreras

Arab Women Writers

Our Women on the Ground: Essays by Arab Women Reporting from the Arab World, edited by Zahra Hankir

A Most Masculine State: Gender, Politics and Religion in Saudi Arabia by Madawi Al-Rasheed

Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution by Mona Eltahawy

Daring to Drive: A Saudi Woman’s Awakening by Manal Al-Sharif

Reading Now

Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century by Alice Wong

She Came to Slay: The Life and Times of Harriet Tubman by Erica Armstrong Dunbar

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