ENGL 101 Enhanced Book Club Titles for Fall 2019
*Blue ISBN-13# is a live link to Amazon if you want to order it directly.
*Book Club starts 16 September 2019.
*It doesn't matter what edition of the book you use; if you use an audiobook, okay, but have a print version as well.
Tommy Orange. There, There. Vintage; Reprint edition (May 7, 2019)
ISBN-13: 978-0525436140 Paperback
The novel follows twelve characters from Indigenous communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to each other in ways they may not yet realize. There is Jacquie Red Feather, newly sober and working to make it back to the family she left behind. Dene Oxendene, who is pulling his life back together after his uncle’s death, has come to work at the powwow to honor his memory. Fourteen-year-old Orvil has come to perform traditional dance for the very first time. Together, this chorus of voices tells of the plight of the urban Native American—grappling with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and spirituality, with communion and sacrifice and heroism. There There is at once poignant and laugh-out-loud funny, utterly contemporary and always unforgettable.
Mbue, Imbolo. Behold the Dreamers. Random House Trade Paperbacks; Reprint Edition (June 26, 2017)
ISBN-13: 978-0525509714 Paperback
Jende Jonga, a Cameroonian immigrant living in Harlem, has come to the United States to provide a better life for his family. In the fall of 2007, Jende can hardly believe his luck when he lands a job as a chauffeur for Clark Edwards, a senior executive at Lehman Brothers. Clark’s wife, Cindy, even offers Neni temporary work at the Edwardses’ summer home. With these opportunities, Jende and Neni can at last gain a foothold in America. However, the world of great power and privilege conceals troubling secrets. When the financial world is rocked by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the Jongas are desperate to keep Jende’s job—even as their marriage threatens to fall apart. As all four lives are dramatically upended, Jende and Neni are forced to make an impossible choice.
Owens, Delia. Where the Crawdads Sing. G.P. Putnam's Sons; Later Printing edition (August 14, 2018)
ISBN-13: 978-0735219090 Paperback
A painfully beautiful novel that is at once a murder mystery, a coming-of-age narrative and a celebration of nature. The story is set in the 1950s and revolves around a young woman named Kya Clark, who is from extremely rural North Carolina. Known by others as the Marsh Girl, she lives alone in nature—but the draw of other people, and specifically love, brings her into contact with the greater world. The author surveys the desolate marshlands of the North Carolina coast through the eyes of an abandoned child. And in her isolation that child makes us open our own eyes to the secret wonders—and dangers—of her private world.
Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale. Anchor; first Anchor Books Edition (March 19, 1998)
ISBN-13: 978-0385490818 Paperback
Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining births, Offred and the other Handmaids are valued only if their ovaries are viable.Offred can remember the days before, when she lived and made love with her husband Luke; when she played with and protected her daughter; when she had a job, money of her own, and access to knowledge. But all of that is gone now.
Whitehead, Colson. The Underground Railroad. Anchor; Reprint Edition (January 30, 2016)
ISBN-13: 978-0345804327 Paperback
Cora is a young slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. An outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is on the cusp of womanhood—where greater pain awaits. And so when Caesar, a slave who has recently arrived from Virginia, urges her to join him on the Underground Railroad, she seizes the opportunity and escapes with him. In Whitehead's conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor: engineers and conductors operate a secret network of actual tracks and tunnels. Cora embarks on a harrowing flight from one state to the next, encountering, like Gulliver, strange yet familiar iterations of her own world at each stop. As Whitehead re-creates the terrors of the antebellum era, he weaves in the saga of our nation.
ISBN-13: 978-0525436140 Paperback
The novel follows twelve characters from Indigenous communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to each other in ways they may not yet realize. There is Jacquie Red Feather, newly sober and working to make it back to the family she left behind. Dene Oxendene, who is pulling his life back together after his uncle’s death, has come to work at the powwow to honor his memory. Fourteen-year-old Orvil has come to perform traditional dance for the very first time. Together, this chorus of voices tells of the plight of the urban Native American—grappling with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and spirituality, with communion and sacrifice and heroism. There There is at once poignant and laugh-out-loud funny, utterly contemporary and always unforgettable.
Mbue, Imbolo. Behold the Dreamers. Random House Trade Paperbacks; Reprint Edition (June 26, 2017)
ISBN-13: 978-0525509714 Paperback
Jende Jonga, a Cameroonian immigrant living in Harlem, has come to the United States to provide a better life for his family. In the fall of 2007, Jende can hardly believe his luck when he lands a job as a chauffeur for Clark Edwards, a senior executive at Lehman Brothers. Clark’s wife, Cindy, even offers Neni temporary work at the Edwardses’ summer home. With these opportunities, Jende and Neni can at last gain a foothold in America. However, the world of great power and privilege conceals troubling secrets. When the financial world is rocked by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the Jongas are desperate to keep Jende’s job—even as their marriage threatens to fall apart. As all four lives are dramatically upended, Jende and Neni are forced to make an impossible choice.
Owens, Delia. Where the Crawdads Sing. G.P. Putnam's Sons; Later Printing edition (August 14, 2018)
ISBN-13: 978-0735219090 Paperback
A painfully beautiful novel that is at once a murder mystery, a coming-of-age narrative and a celebration of nature. The story is set in the 1950s and revolves around a young woman named Kya Clark, who is from extremely rural North Carolina. Known by others as the Marsh Girl, she lives alone in nature—but the draw of other people, and specifically love, brings her into contact with the greater world. The author surveys the desolate marshlands of the North Carolina coast through the eyes of an abandoned child. And in her isolation that child makes us open our own eyes to the secret wonders—and dangers—of her private world.
Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale. Anchor; first Anchor Books Edition (March 19, 1998)
ISBN-13: 978-0385490818 Paperback
Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining births, Offred and the other Handmaids are valued only if their ovaries are viable.Offred can remember the days before, when she lived and made love with her husband Luke; when she played with and protected her daughter; when she had a job, money of her own, and access to knowledge. But all of that is gone now.
Whitehead, Colson. The Underground Railroad. Anchor; Reprint Edition (January 30, 2016)
ISBN-13: 978-0345804327 Paperback
Cora is a young slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. An outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is on the cusp of womanhood—where greater pain awaits. And so when Caesar, a slave who has recently arrived from Virginia, urges her to join him on the Underground Railroad, she seizes the opportunity and escapes with him. In Whitehead's conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor: engineers and conductors operate a secret network of actual tracks and tunnels. Cora embarks on a harrowing flight from one state to the next, encountering, like Gulliver, strange yet familiar iterations of her own world at each stop. As Whitehead re-creates the terrors of the antebellum era, he weaves in the saga of our nation.