Slog - Comments on Seattle Reads a Book With an Ugly Cover http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/03/seattle_reads_a_book_with_an_ugly_cover Seattle Public Library has announced that this years' Seattle Reads choice (the program formerly known as "If All Seattle Read the Same Book...") is The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu, who is originally from Ethiopia. It's got one damn ugly cover: I haven't read it yet. The novel is about a Washington DC neighborhood in the 1970s. There's also quite a bit about Alexis de Tocqueville, which is promising, and lots of talk about class issues, which could be interesting in a discussion at the library, since the library tends to draw upper-middle-class bookclub ladies and also... Copyright 2008 Tue, 04 Mar 2008 16:30:48 -0800 Tue, 04 Mar 2008 18:01:46 -0800 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.34 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Comment by Kiru Banzai Woooooooo! De Toqueville!

Also, class wars.

]]> Kiru Banzai http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/03/seattle_reads_a_book_with_an_ugly_cover#c956350 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/03/seattle_reads_a_book_with_an_ugly_cover#c956350 Books Tue, 04 Mar 2008 16:48:21 -0800 Comment by nbc Though it's buying into the hippy utopian social engineering project, I'm kinda excited to read this.

]]> nbc http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/03/seattle_reads_a_book_with_an_ugly_cover#c956357 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/03/seattle_reads_a_book_with_an_ugly_cover#c956357 Books Tue, 04 Mar 2008 16:51:58 -0800 Comment by Good speaker Though I haven't read the book I saw Mengestu speak last year at Elliott Bay and was impressed. The passage he read was great and he gracefully fielded a number of ill-informed audience questions (why would one ask an Ethiopian writer living in the US about the Congo?!?!). Class and race will certainly come up since gentrification is a central theme in the book. That's a good pick by SPL.

]]> Good speaker http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/03/seattle_reads_a_book_with_an_ugly_cover#c956442 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/03/seattle_reads_a_book_with_an_ugly_cover#c956442 Books Tue, 04 Mar 2008 18:01:46 -0800