Hard to believe, but this year will mark the 10th anniversary of the CambridgeREADS program. To honor this auspicious milestone the selection committee concentrated on books by local authors. In addition, since the last two books were non-fiction, the committee moved novels to the head of their list. Three Weeks in December by Audrey Schulman came out on top.
There will be a "Meet the Author" program on October 25th at the Main Library at 7 PM which will be followed by a book signing held in cooperation with Porter Square Books. In addition there will be three companion programs on Thursday evenings in October. You can read more about the book, its author, and the up-coming programing by following this link.
If you belong to a book club, why not make Three Weeks in December your September or October pick? It will provide your group with lots of opportunity for discussion topics, among them the endangered mountain gorillas of the Congo, Aspergers, the colonization of East Africa, and the true story of man-eating lions during the construction of the British railway.
If you'd like to know more about the history of the CambridgeReads program and their book selection process, you can follow this link to a previous post on our blog.
I recently read 3 Weeks in December. I thought it was well written and the format, going back and between two personalities was easy to follow. Loved learning more about the railway in Africa and Aspies. I want to hear more about how and why these two personalities lives are similiar, though their life challenges are so different.
ReplyDeleteI finished the novel last month while on vacation in Maine, and I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough.
ReplyDeleteThe stories (there are two, told in alternating chapters) are both set in Africa. One takes place in 1899, the other in 2000. Both concern characters originally from this area.
The 1899 tale concerns an engineer, a man with a secret, who comes to help build a railway and is drafted to kill two man-eating lions who have killed and devoured scores of people. (The story of the lions is based on the author’s historical research.)
In the other story, an ethnobotanist (a job description that’s new to me) who has Asperger’s Syndrome goes to Africa looking for a plant that has potential value to a pharmaceutical company. While searching, she lives with a group of scientists studying gorillas. Oh, and there is a bizarre rogue army in the area coming menacingly closer day by day.
The author, Audrey Schulman, did a terrific job in painting her scenes, in getting me to care about the protagonists, and in puzzling me as I tried to figure out the connections between the stories.
This is a terrific book for discussion. My book group has it scheduled for November, and I hope most of us will go to hear the author speak. If you haven’t read it yet, pick it up now. It is a super read!