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LEE TORDA 310 Tillinghast Hall Bridgewater State University 508.531.2436 ltorda@bridgew.edu www.leetorda.com On Zoom: https://bridgew.zoom.us/j/3806648927 |
Fall 2021 Open Hours for students (office hours):
MW (in-person or Zoom) 1:30 to 2:30 T (Zoom only) 10:00 to 11:00 R 1:45 to 2:45 (in-person or Zoom) And by appointment Make an appointment, either face to face or on zoom, during office hours or at another time: Let me know you want to meet by adding yourself to my google.doc appointment calendar here: https://goo.gl/3CqLf. If you are meeting me on zoom, I will send you a zoom link for the time you sign up for. |
ENGL 101 Enhanced Book Club Titles for Fall 2021
*Blue ISBN-13# is a live link to Amazon if you want to order it directly.
*Book Club starts the week of 13 September 2021.
*It doesn't matter what edition of the book you use.
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.
Laila, Lalami. The Other Americans Vintage; Reprint edition (March 17, 2020)
ISBN-13: 978-0525436034 Paperback
Late one night, Driss Guerraoui—father, husband, business owner, Moroccan immigrant—is hit and killed by a speeding car. The aftermath of his death brings together a diverse cast of characters: Guerraoui's daughter Nora, a jazz composer returning to the small town in the Mojave she thought she'd left for good; her mother, Maryam, who still pines for her life in the old country; Efraín, an undocumented witness whose fear of deportation prevents him from coming forward; Jeremy, an old friend of Nora’s and an Iraqi War veteran; Coleman, a detective who is slowly discovering her son’s secrets; Anderson, a neighbor trying to reconnect with his family; and the murdered man himself. As the characters tell their stories, connections among them emerge. The Other Americans is at once a family saga, a murder mystery, and a love story informed by the treacherous fault lines of American culture.
Kupersmith, Violet. Build Your House Around My Body. Oneworld Publication (2020)
ISBN-13: 978-0861542147 Paperback.
Two young women go missing decades apart. Both are fearless, both are lost. And both will have their revenge.The fates of these two women are inescapably linked, bound together by past generations, by ghosts and ancestors, by the history of possessed bodies and possessed lands. Build Your House Around My Body takes us from colonial mansions to ramshackle zoos, from sweaty nightclubs to the jostling seats of motorbikes, from ex-pat flats to sizzling back-alley street carts. Spanning more than fifty years of Vietnamese history and barreling toward an unforgettable conclusion, this is a time-traveling, heart-pounding, border-crossing fever dream of a novel that will haunt you long after the last page.
Onyebuchi, Tochi. Riot Baby. Tordotcom; Reprint edition (2020)
ISBN-13: 978-1250214751 Hardcover.
Ella has a Thing. She sees a classmate grow up to become a caring nurse. A neighbor's son murdered in a drive-by shooting. Things that haven't happened yet. Kev, born while Los Angeles burned around them, wants to protect his sister from a power that could destroy her. But when Kev is incarcerated, Ella must decide what it means to watch her brother suffer while holding the ability to wreck cities in her hands. Ella and Kev are both shockingly human and immeasurably powerful. Their childhoods are defined and destroyed by racism. Their futures might alter the world.
Rooted in the hope that can live in anger, Riot Baby is as much an intimate family story as a global dystopian narrative. It burns fearlessly toward revolution and has quietly devastating things to say about love, fury, and the black American experience.
Wilson, Diane. The Seed Keeper: A Novel. Anchor; Milkweed Editions (March 2021)
ISBN-13: 978-1571311375 Paperback
Rosalie Iron Wing grew up in the woods with her father, Ray, who tells her stories of plants, stars, the origins of the Dakhóta people. One morning, Ray doesn’t return from checking his traps. Rosalie is sent to live with a foster family ―where she meets rebellious Gaby Makespeace, in a friendship that transcends the damaged legacies they’ve inherited.
Many years later, Rosalie returns to her childhood home and confronts the past, on a search for family, identity, and a community. In the process, she learns what it means to be descended from women with souls of iron who have protected families, traditions, and a precious cache of seeds through generations of hardship and loss.
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.
Laila, Lalami. The Other Americans Vintage; Reprint edition (March 17, 2020)
ISBN-13: 978-0525436034 Paperback
Late one night, Driss Guerraoui—father, husband, business owner, Moroccan immigrant—is hit and killed by a speeding car. The aftermath of his death brings together a diverse cast of characters: Guerraoui's daughter Nora, a jazz composer returning to the small town in the Mojave she thought she'd left for good; her mother, Maryam, who still pines for her life in the old country; Efraín, an undocumented witness whose fear of deportation prevents him from coming forward; Jeremy, an old friend of Nora’s and an Iraqi War veteran; Coleman, a detective who is slowly discovering her son’s secrets; Anderson, a neighbor trying to reconnect with his family; and the murdered man himself. As the characters tell their stories, connections among them emerge. The Other Americans is at once a family saga, a murder mystery, and a love story informed by the treacherous fault lines of American culture.
Kupersmith, Violet. Build Your House Around My Body. Oneworld Publication (2020)
ISBN-13: 978-0861542147 Paperback.
Two young women go missing decades apart. Both are fearless, both are lost. And both will have their revenge.The fates of these two women are inescapably linked, bound together by past generations, by ghosts and ancestors, by the history of possessed bodies and possessed lands. Build Your House Around My Body takes us from colonial mansions to ramshackle zoos, from sweaty nightclubs to the jostling seats of motorbikes, from ex-pat flats to sizzling back-alley street carts. Spanning more than fifty years of Vietnamese history and barreling toward an unforgettable conclusion, this is a time-traveling, heart-pounding, border-crossing fever dream of a novel that will haunt you long after the last page.
Onyebuchi, Tochi. Riot Baby. Tordotcom; Reprint edition (2020)
ISBN-13: 978-1250214751 Hardcover.
Ella has a Thing. She sees a classmate grow up to become a caring nurse. A neighbor's son murdered in a drive-by shooting. Things that haven't happened yet. Kev, born while Los Angeles burned around them, wants to protect his sister from a power that could destroy her. But when Kev is incarcerated, Ella must decide what it means to watch her brother suffer while holding the ability to wreck cities in her hands. Ella and Kev are both shockingly human and immeasurably powerful. Their childhoods are defined and destroyed by racism. Their futures might alter the world.
Rooted in the hope that can live in anger, Riot Baby is as much an intimate family story as a global dystopian narrative. It burns fearlessly toward revolution and has quietly devastating things to say about love, fury, and the black American experience.
Wilson, Diane. The Seed Keeper: A Novel. Anchor; Milkweed Editions (March 2021)
ISBN-13: 978-1571311375 Paperback
Rosalie Iron Wing grew up in the woods with her father, Ray, who tells her stories of plants, stars, the origins of the Dakhóta people. One morning, Ray doesn’t return from checking his traps. Rosalie is sent to live with a foster family ―where she meets rebellious Gaby Makespeace, in a friendship that transcends the damaged legacies they’ve inherited.
Many years later, Rosalie returns to her childhood home and confronts the past, on a search for family, identity, and a community. In the process, she learns what it means to be descended from women with souls of iron who have protected families, traditions, and a precious cache of seeds through generations of hardship and loss.