Book cover of The Girl with Seven Names

Book description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

An extraordinary insight into life under one of the world's most ruthless and secretive dictatorships - and the story of one woman's terrifying struggle to avoid capture/repatriation and guide her family to freedom.

As a child growing up in North Korea, Hyeonseo Lee was one…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Girl with Seven Names as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This is a painful and deeply personal memoir.

I had the same fate as Hyeonseo Lee. I was one of the millions of Iranians who were trapped in a world ruled by a totalitarian regime. Our house was located near the Caspian Sea, adjacent to the Soviet Union, which made me think about the world beyond the borders of my isolated country.

I started to think about it during the student movement in 1999, and eventually I concluded that the government had deceived and brainwashed us during our entire lives. Looking at the oppression, poverty, and hunger of my people,…

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December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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