October Book Club

Note: All the upcoming books and those that we didn’t select in the September vote are listed at the bottom of this section.

October: Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (One World Essentials)
by Trevor Noah

Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents’ indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa’s tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle.
Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of that young man’s relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother—his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life.
The stories collected here are by turns hilarious, dramatic, and deeply affecting. Whether subsisting on caterpillars for dinner during hard times, being thrown from a moving car during an attempted kidnapping, or just trying to survive the life-and-death pitfalls of dating in high school, Trevor illuminates his curious world with an incisive wit and unflinching honesty. His stories weave together to form a moving and searingly funny portrait of a boy making his way through a damaged world in a dangerous time, armed only with a keen sense of humor and a mother’s unconventional, unconditional love.

Pat will be moderating this month. Hope you can join us for some thoughtful discussion.

Upcoming books: (November is the next book selection month.)
November: Supremacy: How Rule by the Court Replaced Government by the People by Nikolas Bowie and Daphna Renan (Steve)
December: No book club!
January: High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out by Amanda Ripley (Sophie)

Not selected this time (in September):
In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose – Groundbreaking Essays by a Black Woman on Feminism and Political Society by Alice Walker
The Fix: Saving America from the Corruption of a Mob-Style Government by Barbara McQuade
The Art of Rivalry: Four Friendships, Betrayals, and Breakthroughs in Modern Art by Sebastian Smee
The Hate U Give: A Story About Police Violence, Racism, and Speaking Out by Angie Thomas
In the Future of Yesterday: A Life of Stefan Zweig by Rüdiger Görner
Ghosts of Iron Mountain: The Hoax of the Century, Its Enduring Impact, and What It Reveals About America Today by Phil Tinline (Author), Kai Bird
Chaos: Making a New Science by James Gleick