One Community, One Book
Book Nominations for OCOB
The staff at UICHR values your imput and suggestions for reading material. We have created a space where you can nomiate books. We hope you will take the time to look at the materials suggested by our reading community members and perhaps find a new favorite book! We have also posted books which have been nominated and reviewed in previous years. This new space is full of wonderful suggestions and we hope you will keep adding to this list. Please send your suggestions to Joan Nashelsky or Pat Schnack, the coordinators of the reading program.
Books Reviewed for OCOB
*indicates book selected for the project
2005
Anil’s Ghost by Michael Ondaatje
The Color of Water by James McBride
Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat
Forgotten Fire by Adam Bagdassarian
God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
My Invented Country by Isabel Allende
Slave: My True Story by Mende Nazer and Damien Lewis
Snow in August by Pete Hamill
*
When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
2006
My Father’s Rifle: a Childhood in Kurdistan by Hiner Saleem
Freshwater Road by Denise Nicholas
Slave: My True Story by Mende Nazer and Damien Lewis
A Changed Man by Francine Prose
Funny in Farsi: a Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America by Firoozeh Dumas
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Acebe
Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody
The Road Home: the Story of an Armenian Girl by David Kherdian
Dear Mrs. Roosevelt: Letters from Children of the Great Depression by Robert Cohen
Change Me into Zeus’ Daughter by Barbara Robinette Moss
Plot against America by Phillip Roth
The Known World by Edward Jones
Martyrs’ Crossing by Amy Wilentz
*The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon
In the Time of Butterflies by Julia Alvarez
A Hope in the Unseen by Ron Suskind
We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will be Killed with Our Families by Philip Gourevitch
The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang
Beasts of No Nations by Uzodinma Iweala
2007
In the Time of Butterflies by Julia Alvarez
The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat
Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat
They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky by Alephonsion Deng
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
Funny in Farsi: a Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America by Firoozeh Dumas
Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder
Kaffir Boy: The True Story of a Black Youth’s Coming of Age in Apartheid South Africa by Mark Mathabane
Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson
Freshwater Road by Denise Nicholas
A Changed Man by Francine Prose
Plot against America by Phillip Roth
My Father’s Rifle: a Childhood in Kurdistan by Hiner Saleem
Pretty Birds by Scott Simon
A Hope in the Unseen by Ron Suskind
The Lemon Tree: an Arab, a Jew and the Heart of the Middle East by Sandy Tolan
*Blood Done Sign My Name by Tim Tyson
The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls
Life on the Color Line by Gregory Howard Williams
Blindness by Jose Saramago
Snow by Orhan Pamuk
Angel of Harlem by Kuwana Haulsey
My Forbidden Face by Latifa
Desirable Daughters by Bharati Mukherjee
2008
Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder
Field Notes from a Catastrophe by Elizabeth Kolbert
Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Scribbling the Cat: travels with an African soldier by Alexandra Fuller
*A Long Way Gone: memoirs of a boy soldier by Ishmael Beah
The Lemon Tree: an Arab, a Jew and the heart of the Middle East by Sandy Tolan
2009
A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus
Hungry Tide by AMitav Ghosh
Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas
Onmivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan
*Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
Persepolis by Marjane Strapi
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
The Innocent Man by John Grisham
Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortensen