The International Book Club features books by international authors that will take you to worlds and cultures around the globe.
The Book Club is open
to all ICU members. Guests are welcome to attend one meeting
before being asked to
join the ICU.
The Book Club gathers from
7:00 to 9:00 p.m. on Mondays on the dates noted below. Meetings
are at Snapshot Café and Art Bar at 110 Poinsett Highway(at the intersection of Poinsett Highway and Rutherford Road), Greenville. Light meals, snacks and beverages may be purchased during meetings.
For more information,
please contact International Book Club Coordinator Caroline Warthen at (864)
235-5140 or carolinedw at charter.net.
SCHEDULE OF READINGS FOR 2008-2009 WILL BE ANNOUNCED SOON!
BOOKS READ IN 2007-2008:
Special meeting with the Progressive Indian Women's Club: August 26, 2007
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts (Australia and India)
Contact the ICU for details on location and time of meeting.
From Amazon.com: "Crime and punishment, passion and loyalty, betrayal and redemption are only a few of the ingredients in Shantaram, a massive, over-the-top, mostly autobiographical novel. Shantaram is the name given Mr. Lindsay, or Linbaba, the larger-than-life hero. It means "man of God's peace," which is what the Indian people know of Lin. What they do not know is that prior to his arrival in Bombay he escaped from an Australian prison where he had begun serving a 19-year sentence....All of that is enough for several lifetimes, but for Greg Roberts, that's only the beginning."
September 24, 2007
Leaving Microsoft to Change the World: An Entrepreneur's Odyssey to Educate the World's Children by John Wood (US author, book set in Nepal)
John Wood struggles to find a meaningful outlet for his managerial talents and entrepreneurial zeal. For every high-achiever who has ever wondered what life might be like giving back, Wood offers a vivid, emotional, and absorbing tale of how to take the lessons learned at a hard-charging company like Microsoft and apply them to one of the world's most pressing problems: the lack of basic literacy.
November 5, 2007
From the Land of Green Ghosts: A Burmese Odyssey by Pascal Khoo Thwe (Burma/Myanmar)
Khoo Thwe enters Mandalay University during the years when thousands of student activists were killed or imprisoned by the government. A charismatic student organizer, he is forced in 1988 to flee with fellow students to the jungles on the border of Thailand. But while a student, the author, working as a waiter, met John Casey, a Cambridge don who organized a miraculous rescue of the young man.
December 10, 2007
Things Fall Apart: A Novel by Chinua Achebe (Nigeria)
This novel depicts the rise and fall of Okonkwo, a Nigerian whose sense of manliness is more akin to that of his warrior ancestors than to that of his fellow clansmen who have converted to Christianity and are appeasing the British administrators who infiltrate their village. The tough, proud, hardworking Okonkwo is at once a quintessential old-order Nigerian and a universal character in whom sons of all races have identified the figure of their father.
January 14, 2008
Adios Hemingway by Leonardo Padura Fuentes (Cuba)
Padura Fuentes — one of Cuba's best-known and most widely acclaimed writers — has written a first-rate detective story set against the backdrop of Hemingway's Cuba. Part fascinating examination of Hemingway the man in his trying final years and part nifty postmodern procedural, Adios Hemingway will engross Hemingway fans while keeping them in suspense until the final pages.
February 25, 2008
The Map of Love: A Novel by Ahdaf Soueif (UK author, book set in US & Egypt)
When Isabel Parkman discovers an old trunk full of documents--some in English, some in Arabic--in her dying mother's apartment, she turns to Omar al-Ghamrawi, a man with whom she is falling in love, to help her decipher her finds. Omar directs her in turn to his sister Amal in Cairo. To their surprise, they stumble across some unsuspected connections between their own families. Less surprising, perhaps, is the persistence of the very same issues that dogged their ancestors.
April 7, 2008
The Pickup by Nadine Gordimer (South Africa/Arabia)
To Julie Summer, rebellious daughter of a rich white investment banker, the black mechanic she meets at a garage is initially merely an interesting person to add to her circle of bohemian friends. But their relationship swiftly escalates, and Julie insists on marrying Abdu and going with him when he's forced to return to his ancestral village.
May 12, 2008
Becoming Madame Mao - Anchee Min (China)
A girl called Yunhe is born to a rural concubine in 1919; she, she runs away in 1934 to Shanghai with ambitions to be an actress, and later joins the Red Army; and finally, she is dubbed Jiang Ching by the man she marries, Mao Zedong. The title character sets out to seduce the charismatic Mao, and wins him--for a time--until her jealousy, the machinations of his trusted aides, and Mao's own loss of interest cast her into limbo.
June 16, 2008
On Beauty by Zadie Smith (UK author, book set in UK/US)
Faced with the oppressive enthusiasms of his three children, Howard feels that the first two acts of his life are over and he has no clear
plans for the finale. Or the encore. Then Jerome, Howard's older son, falls for Victoria, the stunning daughter of the right-wing icon Monty Kipps, and the two families find themselves thrown together in a beautiful corner of
America, enacting a cultural and personal war against the background of real wars that they barely register.
SUPPORT THE ICU BY PURCHASING YOUR BOOKS THROUGH BETTERWORLD.COM!
Click on the banner below to be connected to Betterworld.com, which funds literacy efforts through its sales of new and used books, and offers carbon-neutral shipping: free in the USA, $2.97 shipping worldwide. A percentage of all purchases made through our website will be donated to the ICU.
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