October's Book
by Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
Synopsis:
"Every Thursday morning for two years in the Islamic Republic of Iran, a bold and inspired teacher named Azar Nafisi secretly gathered seven of her most committed female students to read forbidden Western classics. As Islamic morality squads staged arbitrary raids in Tehran, fundamentalists seized hold of the universities, and a blind censor stifled artistic expression, the girls in Azar Nafisi’s living room risked removing their veils and immersed themselves in the worlds of Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James, and Vladimir Nabokov. In this extraordinary memoir, their stories become intertwined with the ones they are reading. Reading Lolita in Tehran is a remarkable exploration of resilience in the face of tyranny and a celebration of the liberating power of literature."
It was very unexpected that our only attending male member suggested this for October's book. Not something I would normally choose, but it might be an interesting look into a life I'm not familiar with.
AI Summary
5 Comments
i finally got it & im hoping to finish in time.
I didn't finish it (my mind has been too preoccupied lately). Book club keeps getting better and better. We had 3 guys attend this time around. I am going to finish this book even though we are done. There were discussion questions in the back which made it easier for all our girls who THINK they are the moderator haha. We're skipping November and our next club meeting will be in December. Will keep everyone posted with what we choose. Open to suggestions. =)
You may like this book I read back in 2002 when I was part of a book club at the local library
A Fine Balance by ROHINTON MISTRY
Synopsis:
With a compassionate realism and narrative sweep that recall the work of Charles Dickens, this magnificent novel captures all the cruelty and corruption, dignity and heroism, of India. The time is 1975. The place is an unnamed city by the sea. The government has just declared a State of Emergency, in whose upheavals four strangers--a spirited widow, a young student uprooted from his idyllic hill station, and two tailors who have fled the caste violence of their native village--will be thrust together, forced to share one cramped apartment and an uncertain future.
As the characters move from distrust to friendship and from friendship to love, A Fine Balance creates an enduring panorama of the human spirit in an inhuman state.
*Disclaimer* This book is very very very very sad
thanks for the disclaimer. I am balancing my sad books with stupid mindless ones. Works out well! haha
A couple I babysit for saw me reading this and suggested a book to me: Inside the Kingdom : My Life in Saudi Arabia by Carmen Bin Ladin.
Married in 1974 to Osama Bin Laden's older brother, Carmen Bin Laden spent nine years futilely attempting to adjust to both the conservative, tight-knit Bin Laden clan and the repressive Saudi culture she was naively unprepared to face. Half-Swiss and half-Persian, Carmen was raised in relative freedom in Europe. Carried away by romantic notions of love and loyalty, she initially struggled to bridge the gap between her background as an independent Western woman and Middle Eastern expectations of female submission and subservience. Life among the huge Bin Laden clan was especially treacherous since they claimed myriad complex ties to the Saudi royal family. After the birth of three daughters, with her Western-educated husband becoming increasingly parochial and reactionary, she realized it was time to shuck the abaya that literally and figuratively concealed the woman she once was and desperately wanted to be again. Although the notorious Osama Bin Laden appears a few times in the book and his name is bandied about to hook readers, the real story is Carmen's bid for self-actualization within a society and a family that harshly resisted and rejected every minor challenge to traditional wisdom and authority. A riveting testament to courage and determination, this intimate memoir of one woman's spiritual reawakening and odyssey has best-seller written all over it. Margaret Flanagan
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