Central Skagit Library District

In The Home that Was My Country, Syrian-American journalist Alia Malek chronicles her return to her family home in Damascus and the history of the Jabban apartment building. Here, generations of Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Armenians lived, worked, loved, and suffered in close quarters. In telling the story of her family over the course of the last century, Alia brings to light the triumphs and failures that have led Syria to where it is today. "At...

2018 **Academy Award** nominee for Best Documentary Feature, Syrian filmmaker Feras Fayyad’s breathtaking work – a searing example of boots-on-the-ground reportage – follows the efforts of the internationally recognized White Helmets; ordinary citizens who are the first to rush towards military strikes in the hope of saving lives. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema - Documentary at the **Sundance Film Festival**. Nominated for the...

This astonishing book by the prize-winning journalist Rania Abouzeid tells the tragedy of the Syrian War through the dramatic stories of four young people seeking safety and freedom in a shattered country. Extending back to the first demonstrations of 2011, No Turning Back dissects the tangle of ideologies and allegiances that make up the Syrian conflict. As protests ignited in Daraa, some citizens were brimming with a sense of possibility. A privileged...

"The extraordinary story of the women who took on the Islamic State and won In 2014, northeastern Syria might have been the last place you would expect to find a revolution centered on women's rights. And yet that year, an all-female militia faced off against ISIS in a little town few had ever heard of. The Islamic State by then had swept across vast swaths of the country, taking town after town and spreading terror as the civil war burned all around...

"Five years after her husband's death, aviatrix Evangeline Stark receives a mysterious photo causing her to believe her husband did not die when the Lusitania sank. Seeking answers, she goes to Damascus and finds nothing is as it seems"--

"A CIA officer and his recruit arrive in war-ravaged Damascus to hunt for a killer. CIA case officer Sam Joseph is dispatched to Paris to recruit Syrian Palace official Mariam Haddad. The two fall into a forbidden relationship, supercharging Haddad's recruitment and creating unspeakable danger when they enter Damascus to find the man responsible for the disappearance of an American spy. But the cat-and-mouse chase for the killer soon leads to a trail...

The 14th in the Mrs. Pollifax series, Mrs. Pollifax Unveiled joins its predecessors as a delightful source of entertainment and suspense. After all her harrowing adventures in various parts of the world, America's most endearing and unlikely CIA agent is bored with her gardening. When headquarters calls with a deadly mission, she's ready with passport in hand. After single-handedly thwarting hijackers on a flight to the Middle East, a young American...

Since 2011, an estimated 9 million Syrians -- half of them children -- have fled their homes due to the civil war. BORN IN SYRIA follows seven of these young, displaced children for a year witnessing everything through their eyes: their escape from Syria, their travel through the refugee camps in the Middle East, and their arrival into the promised land of Europe. With a soundtrack composed by Gabriel Yared, this feature-length documentary reveals...

"Hadi and Sama are a young Syrian couple in the throes of new love, building a life in the country that brought them together. They'd met in Cambridge, Massachusetts: he, a shell-shocked refugee of a bloody civil war; she, a passionate dreamer who'd come to America years earlier in search of new horizons. Now, they giddily await the birth of their son, a boy whose native language would be freedom and belonging. When Sama is five months pregnant, Hadi's...

Forced to take shelter when their Syrian city is plagued with bombings, young Nour and her cousin begin to bravely build a secret underground library. Based on the author's own life experience and inspired by a true story, Nour's Secret Library is about the power of books to heal, transport and create safe spaces during difficult times. Illustrations by Romanian artist Vali Mintzi superimpose the colorful world the children construct over black-and-white...