Hello Everyone:

I hope you're all enjoying the summer, and summer reading.

The poll for our August 25, 2016 is up. Please vote if you think you might attend. I'll close the poll in a week -- Monday July 4. Descriptions of the books are below.

The books on this poll have been selected by volunteer facilitators from a longer list of book suggestions by members. August's list ranges from call number #914.61 - #[masked]. Members can make book suggestions any time by posting on the Discussion board See Guidelines for book suggestions.

If you rely on borrowing books from the library, to ensure you get a copy in time, before the next book is announced, see note on Borrowing books from the Toronto Public Library.

Cheers

Rose

Upcoming Meetings:

June -  Better: A surgeon's notes on performance ATUL GAWANDE

July - Just Listen: discover the secret to getting through to absolutely anyone MARK GOULSTON

Books on August Poll

Numbers = holds/copies/pages call#, after description: Amazon average rating, number of reviews/% 5 stars; for books over 450 pages, we discuss the first 400

In declining order of availability in TPL.

Infidel AYAAN HIRSI ALI 9h/83c/353p[masked] In this profoundly affecting memoir from the internationally renowned author of The Caged Virgin,Ayaan Hirsi Ali tells her astonishing life story, from her traditional Muslim childhood in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and Kenya, to her intellectual awakening and activism in the Netherlands, and her current life under armed guard in the West.One of today's most admired and controversial political figures, Ayaan Hirsi Ali burst into international headlines following an Islamist's murder of her colleague, Theo van Gogh, with whom she made the movie Submission.Infidelis the eagerly awaited story of the coming of age of this elegant, distinguished -- and sometimes reviled -- political superstar and champion of free speech. With a gimlet eye and measured, often ironic, voice, Hirsi Ali recounts the evolution of her beliefs, her ironclad will, and her extraordinary resolve to fight injustice done in the name of religion. Raised in a strict Muslim family and extended clan, Hirsi Ali survived civil war, female mutilation, brutal beatings, adolescence as a devout believer during the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, and life in four troubled, unstable countries largely ruled by despots. In her early twenties, she escaped from a forced marriage and sought asylum in the Netherlands, where she earned a college degree in political science, tried to help her tragically depressed sister adjust to the West, and fought for the rights of Muslim immigrant women and the reform of Islam as a member of Parliament. Even though she is under constant threat -- demonized by reactionary Islamists and politicians, disowned by her father, and expelled from her family and clan -- she refuses to be silenced.Ultimately a celebration of triumph over adversity, Hirsi Ali's story tells how a bright little girl evolved out of dutiful obedience to become an outspoken, pioneering freedom fighter. As Western governments struggle to balance democratic ideals with religious pressures, no story could be timelier or more significant. 4.7, 1336/79%

History's people : Personalities and the Past MARGARET MACMILLAN 54h,111c,304p[masked] In History’s People internationally acclaimed historian Margaret MacMillan gives her own personal selection of figures of the past, women and men, some famous and some little-known, who stand out for her. Some have changed the course of history and even directed the currents of their times. Others are memorable for being risk-takers, adventurers, or observers. She looks at the concept of leadership through Bismarck and the unification of Germany; William Lyon Mackenzie King and the preservation of the Canadian Federation; Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the bringing of a unified United States into the Second World War. She also notes how leaders can make huge and often destructive mistakes, as in the cases of Hitler, Stalin, and Thatcher. Richard Nixon and Samuel de Champlain are examples of daring risk-takers who stubbornly went their own ways, often in defiance of their own societies. Then there are the dreamers, explorers, and adventurers, individuals like Fanny Parkes and Elizabeth Simcoe who manage to defy or ignore the constraints of their own societies. Finally, there are the observers, such as Babur, the first Mughal emperor of India, and Victor Klemperer, a Holocaust survivor, who kept the notes and diaries that bring the past to life. 4.4, 10/60%

Under the Afghan Sky: A Memoir of Captivity MELLISA FUNG 3h,60c,358p[masked] In October 2008, Mellissa Fung, a reporter for CBC’s The National, was leaving a refugee camp outside of Kabul when she was kidnapped by armed men. She was forced to hike for several hours through the mountains until they reached a villa≥ there, the kidnappers pushed her towards a hole in the ground. “No,” she said. “I am not going down there.”\\For more than a month, Fung lived in that hole, which was barely tall enough to stand up in, nursing her injuries, praying and writing in a notebook. Under an Afghan Sky is the gripping tale of Fung’s days in captivity, surviving on cookies and juice, from the “grab” to her eventual release. 4.3, 7/72%

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier ISHMAEL BEAH 15h,71c,229p[masked] "An international bestseller, named a Globe & Mail Best100 Books of the Year, a New York Times Book Review100 Notable Books of the Year, and a Publishers WeeklyBest Books of the Year.
It is estimated that in the more than fifty violent conflicts going on worldwide, there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beahused to be one of them; (# of copies includes 9 large print)" 4.6, 1403/69%

The Inconvenient Indian THOMAS KING 102h,121c,288p[masked] a critical and personal meditation [covering] over the ... 50 years about what it means to be "Indian" in North America 4.4, 81/64%

Long walk to freedom : the autobiography of Nelson Mandela NELSON MANDELA 17h,11c,638p[masked] Nelson Mandela is one of the great moral and political leaders of our time: an international hero whose lifelong dedication to the fight against racial oppression in South Africa won him the Nobel Peace Prize and the presidency of his country. Since his triumphant release in 1990 from more than a quarter-century of imprisonment, Mandela has been at the center of the most compelling and inspiring political drama in the world. As president of the African National Congress and head of South Africa's anti-apartheid movement, he was instrumental in moving the nation toward multiracial government and majority rule. He is revered everywhere as a vital force in the fight for human rights and racial equality. The foster son of a Thembu chief, Mandela was raised in the traditional, tribal culture of his ancestors, but at an early age learned the modern, inescapable reality of what came to be called apartheid, one of the most powerful and effective systems of oppression ever conceived. In classically elegant and engrossing prose, he tells of his early years as an impoverished student and law clerk in Johannesburg, of his slow political awakening, and of his pivotal role in the rebirth of a stagnant ANC and the formation of its Youth League in the 1950s. He describes the struggle to reconcile his political activity with his devotion to his family, the anguished breakup of his first marriage, and the painful separations from his children. He brings vividly to life the escalating political warfare in the fifties between the ANC and the government, culminating in his dramatic escapades as an underground leader and the notorious Rivonia Trial of 1964, at which he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Herecounts the surprisingly eventful twenty-seven years in prison and the complex, delicate negotiations that led both to his freedom and to the beginning of the end of apartheid. Finally he provides the ultimate inside accoun 4.7, 780/80%
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