Moke Hill READS Book Club

Jul 18, 2017 by contributor

 NEXT MEETING:  Tuesday August 1 — 7 PM, Moke Hill Library/Archives

BOOK:  Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood, by Trevor Noah. Trevor Noah –Jon Stewart’s successor on The Daily Show –began life in South Africa with a criminal act: he was born to a white Swiss-German father and a black Xhosa mother when such a union was punishable by imprisonment. To protect the family, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life. Liberated by the end of South Africa’s oppressive white rule, Trevor and his remarkable mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle.

September 5, 2017  At the Edge of the Orchard by Tracy Chevalier.  In 1838, James and Sadie Goodenough settle in the swamp lands of northwest Ohio carving out a new life for their family around an apple orchard. Tragedies ensue, and the story picks up fifteen years later with their youngest son, Robert who ran west – to San Francisco, the grove of Calaveras Big Trees, Murphys, and the Gold Rush world of 1853.  Skills learned in his father’s orchard serve him well, but Robert’s former life catches up with him and he’s forced to confront the past that he’s running from.

 October 3, 2017.  The Girl with Seven Names: Escape from North Korea, by Hyeonseo Lee.

An autobiography that reads like a suspense novel, Lee provides extraordinary insight into life under one of the world’s most ruthless and secretive dictatorships.  At 17 she slipped over the border into China and spent the next decade living a secret life to avoid capture and repatriation. Life in the world outside of North Korea exposed the repression and poverty of what she had been told was the most successful country on the planet. It took over a decade before she obtained South Korean refugee citizenship and smuggled out her mother and brother.

Moke Hill Reads Book Club:  First Tuesday of every month. No commitment, No attendance taken, No restrictions, No membership, No dues. For everyone interested in good books and discussions about them. Sponsored by the Mokelumne Hill Friends of the Library. Send your email address or watch for announcements on mokehill.org and other news sources. Contact Janet Dock:  janetdock@me.com