My friends Katherine Kiviat and Scott Heidler have a new book out. It is worth a look.

The press synopsis:

JERUSALEM—September 2007—The world remembers the stomach-turning television news images of innocent Afghan women executed in the Kabul stadium, and the stories of women being beaten in the streets of Afghanistan for infractions that seem frivolous to a Westerner—letting their hair be seen or leaving their family compound without permission. The world remembers the quick overthrow of the Taliban just months after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, and the new images of free Afghan women rushing to beauty salons to coif their hair, and little girls wearing crisp new uniforms streaming into classrooms—the first time for most of them going to lessons outside underground, secret schools. But what is the situation like now for the women of Afghanistan after the world’s attention has left?

In Women of Courage: Intimate Stories from Afghanistan ($19.95; Hardcover; September 2007),  photojournalist Katherine Kiviat and Fox News Middle East Correspondent Scott Heidler offer a new glimpse of the true stories and incredible work Afghan women are doing to push for continued reform and maintain the freedoms they have so recently won back.

With the courage of Afghan heroines from many walks of life—privileged/poor, educated/simple, athletic/disabled, politically connected/rural, self-promoting/motherly—change is taking flight. It is here, in the pages of Women of Courage, where compelling photographs and unfiltered interviews will allow you to look into the eyes and read the words of some of these heroines. From a Bread Maker to a Presidential Candidate, a University Student to a Bee Keeper, and a Fortune Teller to an Afghan National Army Helicopter Pilot, these women are all agents of change in their future, in their country, trying to make a better tomorrow for themselves and their daughters..