I am a huge fan of Dave Eggers.   He is a great writer, his heart is in the right place, and each of his works is different from anything else he has written.  His newest is a biography of a young man I had never heard of,  yet came to admire after I read The Monk of Mokha.

Mokhtar Alkanshali grew up in one of the poorest areas of San Francisco; however, he was hard-working, intelligent, engaging and quick on his feet.  With very little backing or knowledge of what he was getting into, he set out to help the people of his parents’ native land by bringing coffee growing back to Yemen.  Yemen was the first country to grow and brew coffee centuries back, and Mokhtar feels by reintroducing the world to their coffee, the country will overcome its negative reputation and give jobs to many of the country’s unemployed.  However, to attain his lofty goal, he must face many dangerous, life threatening encounters.