One Book One Community

Companion Book Selections

The Things They Carried One Book
One Community
for 2009

The Things
They Carried

by Tim O'Brien
Stealing Buhhda's Dinner
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.
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
   

One Book One Community Events

KICKOFF EVENTFriday, September 18 - 7:00 pm
 Peter White Public Library 
Refreshments, music, and books

Books for Soldiers CollectionDonate books to be sent to our enlisted personnel overseas.

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




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