The Woman Who Fell from the Sky: My Year of Making News in Yemen

It's hard to imagine that one of the most influential newspapers in Osama Bin Laden's heartland could be run by an agnostic thirty-something single woman from Manhattan. But Jennifer Steil is no ordinary woman. Eager for adventure, she jumped at the chance to train young journalists at the Yemen Observer, despite the fact that she didn't speak a word of Arabic, loathed hot weather, and had never taught a class in her life.

In turn, her students thought nothing of plagiarising articles from the Internet and had trouble distinguishing opinion from news, but they were desperate for training. One in particular, a diminuitive abaya-clad ball of fire called Zuhra begged her to teach her how to be a real reporter. Never before in her career had she felt so useful.

But when Steil agreed to take over as editor-in-chief for a year, the real challenges of living and working in a conservative Muslim country, and the strength and determination her female colleagues need to have their voices heard, hit home. Along the way, she makes lifelong friends with people whose traditions could not be more different from her own, and often learns much more than she could ever teach.

And also proves that you often find love in the most unlikely of places ...