David L. Robbins

About the author:

About the book:
"Intricately plotted, insightful and deeply affecting, this novel by the author of the bestselling The End of War probes the malignancy of racial prejudice among the self-righteous citizens of a tightly knit Southern blue-collar town. At first, no one seems too put out by the interracial marriage of 32-year-old Elijah Waddell and Clare, the 22-year-old white granddaughter of Rosy Epps, former schoolteacher and leading citizen of Good Hope, Va. When their daughter is born without a brain and dies only minutes after delivery, Rosy a driving force among the hierarchy of the Victory Baptist Church invites controversy when she has the child's body buried in the all-white churchyard cemetery. However, she raises no protest when the deacons have the casket disinterred and moved to the cemetery of a nearby black Baptist church. That night the white church is burned to the ground, and Elijah is caught seemingly red-handed at the site, watching it burn. The judge orders Nat Deeds, a former assistant DA, to return from Richmond to defend Elijah. Anxious to put the case and Good Hope behind him, Nat tries to convince Elijah to cop a plea but when the body of the bullying sheriff's teenage daughter is discovered in the ruins, he is charged with capital murder. Overnight, the once-serene backwater becomes a time bomb of pent-up racial enmity. With empathy and beautiful prose, Robbins succeeds at evoking the vagaries and triumphs of the human heart." - From Publishers Weekly. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc
 

Christopher Buckley

About the author:

"Christopher Buckley was born in New York City in 1952 and graduated cum laude from Yale University in 1976. He shipped out in the Merchant Marine and at age 24 became managing editor of Esquire magazine. At age 29, he became chief speechwriter to the Vice President of the United States, George H.W. Bush. Since 1989 he has been founder and editor-in-chief of Forbes Life magazine."

Mr. Buckley is the author of twelve books, most of them national bestsellers.  He has contributed over 60 comic essays to The New Yorker magazine. His journalism, satire and criticism has been widely published—in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New Republic, Washington Monthly, Vanity Fair, Vogue, Esquire, and other publications. He is the recipient of the 2002 Washington Irving Medal for Literary Excellence. In 2004 he was awarded the Thurber Prize for American Humor. - Adapted from http://www.bookbrowse.com.

About the book:

"BOOMSDAY'S heroine is Cassandra Devine, a charismatic 29-year-old blogger who incites massive political turmoil when, outraged over mounting Social Security debt, she politely suggests that Baby Boomers be given government incentives to kill themselves by age 75. Her modest proposal catches fire with millions of her outraged peers ("Generation Whatever") and an ambitious Senator seeking to gain the youth vote in his presidential campaign. With the help of Washington's greatest spin doctor, the blogger and the politician try to ride the issue of euthanasia for Boomers (they call it "Transitioning") all the way to the White House, over the forceful objections of the Religious Right and, of course, Baby Boomers, who are deeply offended by demonstrations on the golf courses of their retirement resorts."
 - from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/
 

Marjane Satrapi

About the author:

"Marjane Satrapi was born in 1969 in Rasht, Iran. She now lives in Paris, where she is a regular contributor to magazines and newspapers throughout the world, including The New Yorker and The New York Times. She is also the author of several children’s books, Embroideries, and the internationally best-selling and award-winning comic book autobiography in two parts, Persepolis and Persepolis 2. Persepolis is currently being made into an animated feature film, cowritten and codirected by Satrapi, which will be distributed by Sony Picture Classics in 2007."  - from http://www.randomhouse.com/

About the book:

"Persepolis is the story of Satrapi's unforgettable childhood and coming of age within a large and loving family in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution; of the contradictions between private life and public life in a country plagued by political upheaval; of her high school years in Vienna facing the trials of adolescence far from her family; of her homecoming--both sweet and terrible; and, finally, of her self-imposed exile from her beloved homeland. It is the chronicle of a girlhood and adolescence at once outrageous and familiar, a young life entwined with the history of her country yet filled with the universal trials and joys of growing up.

Edgy, searingly observant, and candid, often heartbreaking but threaded throughout with raw humor and hard-earned wisdom--Persepolis is a stunning work from one of the most highly regarded, singularly talented graphic artists at work today." - from http://www.amazon.com/

Mani Suri

About the Author:

"Manil Suri was born and raised in Bombay (now Mumbai), India. He came to the United States as a student when he was twenty. He lives in Silver Spring, Maryland (when not visiting Mumbai) and is a citizen of both the United States and India.

Suri’s first published fiction in English was The Seven Circles, a short story that appeared in The New Yorker on Valentine’s Day, 2000. The Death of Vishnu, his first novel, debuted worldwide in India on January 6, 2001. In addition to being published by W. W. Norton in the United States and Bloomsbury in the UK, the novel has been translated into twenty-two foreign languages. Suri was named by Time magazine as a “Person to Watch” in 2000, and he received a Guggenheim Fellowship for fiction in 2004.

... In addition to being a writer, Suri is also a mathematician. He obtained his PhD in applied mathematics from Carnegie-Mellon University and is a tenured full professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC)." - from http://www.manilsuri.com/suri-bio.htm.

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Created by the Book Subcommittee of Multicultural Enrichment Council on 12/03.  Last updated on 3/13/09.