Photo: Philip Friedman/Studio D

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The White Masai
320 pages; Amistad
This memoir of the relationship between a white European woman and an African Masai warrior resonated with the Swedish-born Malin Akerman, who learned to bridge differences when she married an Italian man. "It made me think about the importance of cultural background when you decide to have children. Sometimes we can bring varied worlds together, but sometimes the divide is just too vast."
— As told to Abbe Wright