As selected by journalist and author Jennifer Steil.
Eight Months on Ghazzah Street by Hilary Mantel (Picador, $16). This tale of an expatriate woman struggling to live within the confines of Jedda's deeply conservative society is creepier than any ghost story, especially for the truths it reveals about Saudi Arabia. With evocative detail, Mantel tackles fundamentalism, oppression, and greed — as well as the ignorance in the expat community.
An Unquenchable Thirst by Mary Johnson (Spiegel & Grau, $16). Johnson spent 20 years as a nun with Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity in Italy and elsewhere. In this unsparing memoir, she describes her conflicts with the congregation and the disillusionment that eventually led her to leave the church. You will never think of Mother Teresa in the same way.
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—For her first novel, The Ambassador's Wife, journalist, author, and former senior editor of The Week Jennifer Steil drew on her experiences as a diplomat's spouse in the Middle East.
