By Greg Mortenson
Viking Adult | 448pgs
Release Date: December 1, 2009

Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan is Greg Mortenson’s touching follow-up to the bestselling Three Cups of Tea, and details his dogged efforts to fulfill his promise to build a school in the Wakhan Corridor. The Corridor, situated in a desolate part of northeastern Afghanistan, is home to the Kirghiz, and receives little government support for health or education. Mortenson and the international staff of his Central Asia Institute (CAI), affectionately called the “Dirty Dozen”, choose the village of Bozai Gumbaz as the site for the school, and work with local leaders to obtain building materials and labor for construction. The CAI must overcome threats of Taliban violence, an earthquake, ingrained opposition to educating girls, and even Mortenson’s own 8-day abduction, in order to finish the school and give the village children an opportunity for a better life.

Three Cups of Tea, published in 2007, became a bestseller and is now required reading for counterinsurgency officers in the U.S. military, as well as some U.S. high school curriculums. As co-founder of the Central Asia Institute, Mortenson is committed to bringing peace and education to the far corners of the Middle East. He, and the CAI, have spent the last 16 years building schools in rural Afghanistan and Pakistan. Mortenson is also the recipient of The Star of Pakistan, Pakistan’s highest honor for civilians.