19 Books About Refugees That Everyone Should Read

"City of Thorns: Nine Lives in the World's Largest Refugee Camp" ($18, originally $20)

When Human Rights Watch researcher Ben Rawlence visited Dabaab, a town on the Kenyan border, he discovered that what was built to be a temporary refuge for people fleeing the civil war in Somalia had become permanent — and incredibly dangerous. Hundreds of thousands of families were stuck there, in that crime-plagued tent city lacking in even the basics.

"To live in this city of thorns is to be trapped mentally, as well as physically," Rawlence writes, "your thoughts constantly flickering between impossible dreams and a nightmarish reality."