One Book One
Community
Companion Book Selections
 |
One Book One Community for 2009 The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien |
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Great
Michigan Read
for 2009 Stealing Buddha's Dinner by Bich Minh Nguyen |
| The One Book, One Community
committee presents its 2009 selection, The
Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. One
Book, One Community is designed to bring Marquette County residents and
Northern Michigan
University students together as a community, to read and discuss a
book every year. The Things They Carried
is set in the United States and Vietnam in the 1960's. The
narrator's name is Tim, like the author, a device intended to
blur the lines of fiction and truth. In one short
story, O'Brien transports the
reader to the Canadian border, where the narrator must decide whether
to dodge the draft or be
shipped off to the war in Vietnam. O'Brien's graphic
vocabulary reveals the expectations of soldiers in the field and
describes their
return to a country uncomfortable with its own foreign policy and
unable to extend a welcome to returning soldiers. Each of the
twenty-two chapters is able to stand on its own as a short story, but
the collection of chapters joined together as a single story is simply
outstanding. |
The
Michigan Humanities Council presents the Great Michigan Read program
providing a statewide look at a single book. This year's
selection, Stealing
Buddha's Dinner
by Bich Minh Nguyen, is a memoir chronicling the author's emmigration
from Vietnam in 1975 and her coming of age in Grand Rapids, Michigan in
the 1980's. Along the way, Nguyen struggles to construct her
own
cultural identity through food, rejecting her grandmother's
traditional Vietnamese cusine in favor of American creations such as
hamburgers and Jell-O. Her diverse family includes her father, sister,
grandmother, and Latina stepmother, who brings another element of
ethnicity to the issue of what foods are truly "American."
An underlying theme, the mystery of Nguyen's birth mother, is
revealed over the course of the story. Stealing Buddha's Dinner
was selected as a 2008 Michigan Notable Book. Nguyen is an
associate
professor of English at Purdue University. This title is also available as a
downloadable audio book through the Online Catalog. |
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| For more information on One Book One Community, go to www.nmu.edu/onebookmqt |
For more information on the Great Michigan Read,
go to www.michigan humanities.org |
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One Book One Community Events
| KICKOFF EVENTFriday,
September 18 - 7:00 pm Peter White Public Library Refreshments, music, and books |
| Book Discussion (part of
U.N.I.T.E.D. Conference)Wednesday, September 30
-
2:00 pm Northern Michigan University |
| Book
Discussion - Stealing
Buddha's Dinner by Bich Minh NguyenTuesday,
October 6 - 7:00 pm Peter White Public Library - Conference Room |
|
Tim O'Brien Author VisitWednesday,
October 7 - 7:00 pm
Great Lakes Rooms at Northern Michigan University |
| Vertigo
Theatre
presents "Letters
from VietnamSunday,
October 11 - 2:00 pm Peter White Public Library - Community Room |
| Film: "Vertical Ray of
the Sun"Tuesday, October 13 - 7:00 pm Peter White Public Library - Community Room Free Admission. Discussion to follow. |
| Book
Discussion - The Things
They Carried by
Tim O'BrienWednesday, October 14 - 6:30 pm Ishpeming Carnegie Public Library |
| Book Discussion - The Things They Carried
by Tim O'BrienMonday, October 19 - 7:00 pm Peter White Public Library - Community Room |
| Book Discussion - The Things They Carried
by Tim O'BrienWednesday, October 28 - 12:00 Noon Brown Bag Lunch Peter White Public Library - Community Room |
| Book Discussion - The Things
They Carried
by Tim O'BrienWednesday, October 28 - 7:30 pm Snowbound Books |
| Telling
the Vietnam Story" with Milton BatesSunday,
November 1 - 2:00 pm Peter White Public Library - Community Room |
| Vietnam Veterans PTSD ForumTuesday,
November 10 - 7:00 pm Peter White Public Library - Community Room |