April 15-21: Courage, Corn Tortillas And Country Music

After she was born, Fawzia Koofi, the 19th daughter of a local village leader in rural Afghanistan, was left to die in the sun by her mother. Against all odds, Koofi survived and went on to become Afghanistan's first female deputy speaker of Parliament. She shares her story in a memoir that's punctuated by a series of letters she wrote to her own two daughters in which she describes the future and freedoms she hopes they and all of Afghanistan's women might one day enjoy.

For 50 years, the taco has been a staple of American life. It's in school lunches and Michelin-star restaurants; it even helped launch the food truck craze. So how did the taco come to loom so large in American bellies? Gustavo Arellano explains our love of all things folded into a tortilla.

When a proposal to pull country music from the Nashville radio station WSM sparked public outcry in 2002, Craig Havighurst scoured new and existing sources to document the station's effect on the city's character and self-image.