Oppression and Possessions

Love in a torn land: Joanna of Kurdistan: the true story of a freedom fighter's escape from Iraqi vengeance – This latest work by Jean Sasson (author of the Princess series) is a biography of a Kurdish freedom fighter within Iraq. Like Princess, the heroine is an a Middle Eastern woman who makes sacrifices for her ethical values. This Sasson work is more politically slanted than her prior works on oppressed women. The reader gleans a base understanding of Kurdish Iraqi history, politics, warfare, and geography. After description and detail of many years of Joanna’s life the ending seems anticlimactic with many issues still unresolved, like the ever evolving region of the Middle East.  In all, an interesting book, but not quite on the riveting, page-turner levels of Sasson's other works.  PCL also has: 
Princess : a true story of life behind the veil in Saudi Arabia
Growing up Bin Laden : Osama's wife and son take us inside their secret world (with Najwa bin Laden & Omar bin Laden)

Snoop – Sam Gosling, PhD

Subtitled What your stuff says about you, this book was not what I expected. Instead of straight evaluations of what certain behaviors, preferences, and personal possessions might say about the individual, this book examines these issues critically. It has a strong psychology slant with detailed analysis backing the reasons why stuff conveys what it does to observers looking into the fishbowl. Bias, judgment, and preconceptions are both proved and disproved depending on the stuff being examined. A lot of scholarly thought went into this manuscript, although the delivery of the message was not quite on the entertainment or reader interest level of a Malcolm Gladwell book.
I would suggest these two Gladwell books instead:
Outliers : the story of success
The tipping point : how little things can make a big difference