New books & media

Defiant Dreams: The Journey of an Afghan Girl Who Risked Everything for Education, Sola Mahfouz and Malaina Kapoor, Ballantine Books, 2023, $28.00

It’s now been two years since US-led forces withdrew from Afghanistan and the Taliban retook control of the country. This bracing new memoir by Sola Mahfouz, a pseudonymous Afghan refugee currently studying quantum computing at Tufts University, is a reminder of the stakes at play for everyday Afghan people. Born in 1996, Mahfouz lived through Taliban rule, the 2001 US-led invasion, and civil war before fleeing the country in 2016. Overcoming resistance toward women’s education from both family members and the Taliban, she started studying English at home and eventually made it to the US with the help of an online conversation partner. Defiant Dreams is both an inspiring story and a tragic reminder of the human cost of war. —rd

Science Sketches: The Universe from Different Angles, Sidney Perkowitz, Jenny Stanford, 2022, $49.95

Science Sketches comprises 52 published articles and essays by Sidney Perkowitz, an emeritus physics professor and popular science writer. Similar to his first anthology, Real Scientists Don’t Wear Ties, which appeared in 2019 (see Physics Today, March 2020, page 52), the material is written for general readers and falls roughly into three categories: science, technology, and culture. In addition to overviews of scientific concepts such as electromagnetic waves, black holes, and quantum gravity, Perkowitz discusses books, art, and films that present math and science concepts; biographies of scientists; and noteworthy technology and its roles in current affairs. Through his use of anecdotes, history, and nontechnical language, Perkowitz strives to present some fairly weighty scientific concepts to nonscientists. —cc