Middle East conflict

Muslim feminist Asra Nomani, a former Wall Street Journal reporter and co-founder of Muslims for Peace, recently spent a reporting fellowship covering a Muslim woman who was building a women's mosque in India.

Nomani was born in Mumbai, India's largest city, moved to the U.S. as a child, and grew up in Morgantown, W. Va.

Her new book is called Standing Alone in Mecca: An American Woman's Struggle for the Soul of Islam.

Journalist Laura Rozen discusses the philosophical split within the Bush administration on how to curb nuclear proliferation in Iran. Rozen reports on national security and foreign policy as a senior correspondent for The American Prospect and as a contributor to The Washington Monthly, the National Journal and other publications. She also writes a political blog, War and Piece.

Augustus Richard Norton, a Boston University professor of international relations and anthropology, has written about Lebanon for 25 years; he's a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and an expert on Shiite political movements, including Hezbollah. His new book is Hezbollah: A Short History.

Ambassador Dennis Ross talks about his role as chief Middle East peace negotiator during the Clinton and George H.W. Bush administrations. His new book is Statecraft: And How to Restore America's Standing in the World.

Sari Nusseibeh is the president of and a professor of philosophy at al-Quds University, the only Arab university in Jerusalem. He's written a memoir, Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life; he's also co-author of the People's Voice Initiative, aimed at building grassroots support for a two-state solution in the Middle East. Until December 2002, he was the representative of the Palestinian National Authority in Jerusalem.

Journalist Matt Beynon Rees is now a crime novelist, too. The Collaborator of Bethlehem follows a Palestinian schoolteacher who turns detective to solve a murder set in the violence-ridden West Bank. Rees was based in Jerusalem as a Middle East reporter for Time magazine for more than a decade, serving as bureau chief from 2000 to 2006.

Nicholas Blanford is the Beirut correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor. His new book, Killing Mr. Lebanon, is about the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Former President Jimmy Carter addresses the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians in his new book, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid. Carter has founded a conflict resolution organization and won a Nobel Peace Prize for his mediation work.

The New Yorker's former Middle East correspondent has written a memoir: Prisoners: A Muslim & A Jew Across the Middle East Divide. Goldberg won the National Magazine Award for Reporting in 2003 for his coverage of terrorism.

Middle East peace expert Sari Nusseibeh is the founder of the Palestinian Consultancy Group and the Israeli-Palestinian Science Organization, the president of Al-Quds University in Jerusalem and a professor of Islamic philosophy. He co-wrote the People's Voice Initiative to build grassroots support for a two-state solution. Until December 2002, he was the representative of the Palestinian National Authority in Jerusalem.