Isaac Muthethe, a young medical student from South Africa, witnesses the brutal murder of a friend by the South African Defense Force. Fearing for his own life under the apartheid regime of the mid-1970s, he flees his homeland
Book Club
Whose Names Are Unknown, a novel by Sanora Babb
Whose Names are Unknown by Sanora Babb tells the story of the Dunne family, their struggle to survive the drought and dust storms of the 1930s, and their exodus to California.
Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
When Atlas Shrugged was published in 1957, critics dismissed it as melodramatic, overwrought, and didactic. The dialogue, they said, was incredibly boring, repetitive, and long-winded. Characters launched into philosophical diatribes that had little to do with the action or scene
The Orchardist, Amanda Coplin
They were two girls dressed in raggedy clothes, standing beneath the awning of the hardware store. Their faces were dirty, their hair tangled, their bodies distended. They were pregnant. Both of them. And hungry. William Talmadge had driven his wagon filled with apples and apricots to town that Sunday morning. He set up his fruit […]
Drift, The Unmooring of American Military Power, by Rachel Maddow
Drift, by Rachel Maddow, explores the ways in which our country has drifted from what was once a peace-loving nation to a country constantly at war. Where once we fought wars
Nightwoods by Charles Frazier
The first line of Frazier’s new novel pulls you in: “Luce’s new stranger children were small and beautiful and violent.” You just can’t quit after a line like that; you have to go on. Follow with “The children loved fire above all elements of creation,” and you have the beginnings of a tale of crime […]
A Stolen Life, by Jaycee Dugard
Phillip Garrido, the low-life who kidnapped eleven-year-old Jaycee Dugard and held her prisoner for 18 years, was sentenced to 431 years in prison for his unspeakable crimes. Nancy, his wife, got 36 years. A Stolen Life, written by Jaycee Dugard, is the story of what happened
The Monster of Florence, by Douglas Preston with Mario Spezi
Amanda Knox, the honor student from Seattle, Washington, has been imprisoned in Perugia, Italy, since November, 2007. This book, The Monster of Florence
