Funny story…I made a mistake & Mia actually chose another country, not Vietnam. We only discovered the error after many of you had sent in Vietnamese suggestions. Oops.
So Mia will now be going with her original country next month. This is why you’ll see Julie’s name in the list of Vietnam books instead of Mia’s.
But speaking of Julie, she sent me a link to a beautiful book of Vietnamese poetry which I fell in love with & included below. Here’s a favorite from this volume which I think will draw you in as well:
“My Mother’s Rice
Through the eyes of my childhood I watch my mother,
who labored in a kitchen built from straw and mud.
She lifted a pair of chopsticks and twirled sunlight into a pot of boiling rice,
the perfume of a new harvest
soaked her worn shirt as she bent and fed rice straws to the hungry flames.
I wanted to come and help, but the child in me
pulled myself into a dark corner
where I could watch my mother’s face
teach beauty how to glow in hardship,
and how to sing the rice to cook with her sunbaked hands.
That day in our kitchen
I saw how perfection was arranged
by soot-blackened pans and pots,
and by the bent back of my mother, so thin
she would disappear if I wept, or cried out.”
Just exquisite! No wonder this poet has won awards.
As Library Journal notes, “Nguyễn writes precise, vibrant poems that give voice to her country’s present, grounded in tradition and dark history.” But I think that the Omaha World-Herald says it best that “when Nguyễn writes of place, I feel that I am walking past the rice shoots in a long ago world.”
Alongside this bonus poetry book from Julie, the club received 4 wonderful suggestions from book club members. We randomly chose 2 as shown in the screencast here. However, Julie liked one of the books which wasn’t chosen so she elected to include it as one of her books this month. (Thank you to Sritama Arijit Bhattacharjee for the original suggestion of that book which you’ll now see in the list as well.)
THE VOTING
You can vote from now until Fri., June 25 at 11:30PM on which book you’d like the club to read next. (That's NYC time. See this converted to your local time below.)
To participate:
1. Review the books.
2. Then, click here to vote.
We'll publish the anonymous results afterwards so you can get the book in advance.