October 2019 – First They Killed My Father
First They Killed My Father by Luong Ung Book Group 2 – October 2019 This is a story that was repeated in approximately eight million lives. It was the agrarian, communist dream that was to restore Kampuchea but ended up forcing constant hunger on its citizens until more than two million died. The narrator of […]
Sep 2019 – No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison
No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison by Behrouz Boochani Book Group 1 – September 2019 The 2018 Victoria Prize for the best in Australian Literature was awarded to an author who is not Australian, has never been to Australia and will never be allowed to visit Australia: Behrouz Boochani, the author of […]
Aug 2019 – Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick Group 2 – August 2019 Nothing to Envy follows the lives of six North Koreans over 15 years—a chaotic period that saw the death of Kim Il-Sung, the unchallenged rise to power of his son Kim Jong-Il, and the devastation of a far-ranging famine […]
Aug 2019 – A State of Freedom
A State of Freedom by Neel Mukherjee Book Group 1 – August 2019 Neel Mukherjee’s compelling book, A State Of Freedom, is full of unforgettable scenes, language and characters as well as a study of brutality of social divisions and how a society’s gross inequalities of power and money demean and deform human condition. The […]
May 2019 – The Widows of Malabar Hill
The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey Book Group 1 – May 2019 Winner of the Agatha Award, The Mary Higgins Clark Award, and nominated for the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction, The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujatha Massey, is a thrilling mystery with fascinating detail about life in 1920s Bombay. Massey […]
April 2019 – The Stolen Bicycle – Wu Ming-yi
The Stolen Bicycle – Wu Ming-yi Book Group 1 – April 26,2019 Our April book club read was The Stolen Bicycle by Taiwanese author Wu Ming-yi. This book weaves fiction and non-fiction stories for the reader to explore how the narrator, Ch’eng, is trying to find what happened to his disappeared father by way of […]
April 2019 – A House Without Windows
A House Without Windows – Nadia Hashim Book Group 2 – April 24th, 2019 A vivid, unforgettable story of an unlikely sisterhood—an emotionally powerful and haunting tale of friendship that illuminates the plight of women in a traditional culture. For two decades, Zeba was a loving wife, a patient mother, and a peaceful villager. But […]
March 2019 -The Silk Merchant’s Daughter
The Silk Merchant’s Daughter by Dinah Jefferies Book Group 1 – March 2019 Dinah Jefferies is known for writing books that take place in Far East locations at some earlier period of history and usually featuring a search for identity, this as a result of her own identity crisis early in life. Centered in Vietnam […]
Feb 2019 – Beauty is a Wound
Beauty is a Wound by Eka Kurniawan Book Group 1 – Feb, 2019 The book group read Beauty is a Wound by Eka Kurniawan. Beauty is a Wound is about the beautiful Indo prostitute Dewi Ayu and her four daughters who are beset by incest, murder, bestiality, rape, insanity, monstrosity, and the often vengeful undead. […]
Jan 2019 – The Face
The Face: Strangers on a Pier by Tash Aw Book Group 1 – Jan, 2019 The Face by Tash Aw is described as ‘… a whirlwind personal history of modern Asia, as told through his Malaysian and Chinese heritage.’ In this short book Tash Aw ‘explores the panoramic cultural vitality of modern Asia through his […]