A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (2007).Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picolult (2007).Secret of Lost Things by Sheridan Hay (2007).

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.Dreamers of the Day by Mary Doria Russell (2008).The Traveler by Daren Simkin and Daniel Simkin (2008).The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid (2009).The Housekeeper and the Professor by Ogawa Yoko (2.East of the Sun by Julie Gregson (2010).Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (2010).Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks (2013).As Western governments struggle to balance democratic ideals with religious pressures, no story could be timelier or more significant. Ultimately a celebration of triumph over adversity, Hirsi Ali's story tells how a bright little girl evolved out of dutiful obedience to become an outspoken, pioneering freedom fighter. Even though she is under constant threat - demonized by reactionary Islamists and politicians, disowned by her father, and expelled from her family and clan - she refuses to be silenced. In her early twenties, she escaped from a forced marriage and sought asylum in the Netherlands, where she earned a college degree in political science, tried to help her tragically depressed sister adjust to the West, and fought for the rights of Muslim immigrant women and the reform of Islam as a member of Parliament. Raised in a strict Muslim family and extended clan, Hirsi Ali survived civil war, female mutilation, brutal beatings, adolescence as a devout believer during the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, and life in four troubled, unstable countries largely ruled by despots. With a gimlet eye and measured, often ironic, voice, Hirsi Ali recounts the evolution of her beliefs, her ironclad will, and her extraordinary resolve to fight injustice done in the name of religion.

Infidel is the eagerly awaited story of the coming of age of this elegant, distinguished - and sometimes reviled - political superstar and champion of free speech.

One of today's most admired and controversial political figures, Ayaan Hirsi Ali burst into international headlines following an Islamist's murder of her colleague, Theo van Gogh, with whom she made the movie Submission. In this profoundly affecting memoir from the internationally renowned author of The Caged Virgin and Nomad, Ayaan Hirsi Ali tells her astonishing life story, from her traditional Muslim childhood in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and Kenya, to her intellectual awakening and activism in the Netherlands, and her current life under armed guard in the West.

Nomad by Ayaan Hirsi Ali