About the Project
Voting to decide the selection for the college’s 2011-12 Common Reading Project is now closed and the winner will be announced soon. Descriptions of books under consideration are below.
During the summer, any members of the CCRI community who wish to participate in the project will read the selection. During the 2011-12 academic year, the committee will offer activities such as discussions and films related to the book’s themes.
Thank you for your participation in this project.
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"One Amazing Thing"
by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni - A modern-day “Canterbury Tales,” Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s novel “One Amazing Thing” celebrates the power of storytelling. Having survived an earthquake that hits the United States, the nine characters in Divakaruni’s novel find themselves trapped in the ruins of an Indian consulate office where they have gone for visas. As they await their unknown fate, these strangers decide to tell their individual stories and reveal one amazing thing about their lives. One by one, they tell tales of love, seduction, betrayal, lost opportunities, dreams, ambitions and secrets. Divakaruni’s novel pays tribute to the transformative nature of storytelling and the ability of people with diverse histories, races, religions and experiences to find a common thread in their humanity. (240 pages)
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"Persepolis"
by Marjane Satrapi - One of the best known graphic memoirs of our time, “Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood” tells of author Marjane Satrapi’s early years in Iran after the cultural revolution of 1979. At times imaginative and humorous, Satrapi reveals the brutal political and cultural changes experienced by her family and country, lifting the veil on Iran’s recent past. Satrapi’s work has been groundbreaking in establishing the importance of graphic fiction or nonfiction within literary circles. (160 pages)
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"The Red Badge of Courage"
by Stephen Crane - In remembrance of this 150th year since the start of the Civil War, readers today will find Crane’s work pertinent to our present historical moment. The book focuses on one soldier’s first war experience as his sensibilities shift between romantic notions and the gritty realistic experience of battle. This classic has endured for more than a century because of its rich descriptions, psychological depth and probing questions about war. (143 pages)
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"The Soloist:
A Lost Dream, An Unlikely Friendship and the Redemptive Power of Music"
by Steve Lopez - This book is the real-life story written by Steve Lopez, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, who encounters Nathaniel Ayers, a once-promising student at the renowned Juilliard School of Music who is now living out of a shopping cart under a bridge. Although the book chronicles the author’s efforts to help Ayers deal with the challenges of mental illness, it is ultimately an amazing tale of friendship, hope and perseverance. (286 pages)
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"Tinkers" by Paul Harding
- This 2010 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is about the final eight days of an elderly man’s life during which his wandering mind recounts various moments of the past and of his father, a tinker who drove his wagon throughout the countryside. The son repairs clocks, and Harding’s prose, which reviewers have described as “lyrical” and “poetic,” erases the restrictive boundaries of time. (191 pages)
