Posted by Alex Dunn on
Are you part of a book club or looking to start one? My Road from Damascus by Jamal Saeed makes a great book club pick! Humorous, witty, horrific, and poetic, Jamal Saeed’s story is Syria’s story: surviving 12 years in brutal military prisons, an enchanted childhood, his loves, Syria’s deadly upheavals, and his family’s escape. Book Club Questions My Road from Damascus suggests that a writer may move freely within the space of their life rather than along a chronologically arranged line of experiences, creating scenes in which childhood and old age are juxtaposed. We can say the same about sorrows, joys, despair, and...
Posted by Alex Dunn on
Are you part of a book club or looking to start one? Help! I’m Alive by Gurjinder Basran makes a great book club pick! When a teen dies, four people are left spinning, each trying to deal with their grief and face the dissatisfactions of their lives. Fresh, insightful, and propulsive, Help! I’m Alive sensitively and authentically explores the challenges of death . . . and of living on. Book Club Questions Why do you think the author chose to have multiple narrators? How did that change your reading experience? How did the story change by including an adult voice along with...
Posted by Alex Dunn on
Are you part of a book club or looking to start one? What Is Written on the Tongue by Anne Lazurko makes a great book club pick! Released from Nazi forced labor as World War II ends, 20-year-old Sam is quickly drafted and sent to the island of Java to help regain control of the colony. But the Indonesian independence movement is far ahead of the Dutch, and Sam is thrown into a guerilla war, his loyalties challenged when his squad commits atrocities reminiscent of those he suffered at the hands of the Nazis. Sam falls in love with both Sari...
Posted by Alex Dunn on
Are you part of a book club or looking to start one? Day for Night by Jean McNeil makes a great book club pick! Richard Cottar is a respected independent film writer and director; his wife, Joanna, is his increasingly successful and wealthy producer. Together they are about to embark on a film about the life of Walter Benjamin, the German Jewish intellectual who killed himself in northern Spain while on the run from the Nazis in 1940. In what looks set to be the last year of Britain’s membership of the European Union, Benjamin’s story of exile and statelessness is more relevant...
Posted by Alex Dunn on
Are you part of a book club or looking to start one? Cracked Pots by Heather Tucker makes a great book club pick! Heather Tucker’s invincible heroine, Ari Appleton, returns in Cracked Pots. With wit, tenacity, and the incessant meddling of Jasper — the seahorse in her head — Ari rides waves of devilry and discovery, calamity and creation, abandonment and atonement on a journey to find her true self. Cracked Pots is a diversely relatable story about what breaks us, rising after the blows, gathering the fragments, and piecing together a spectacular life through creativity, kindness, and belonging. Book Club Questions...