Lunch and Literature is still going strong.
The theme this year was Across the Pond. Our readings take us to far off lands and meet multifaceted characters. To start our journey we tackle our Texting in Community- Dream From My Father: a Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama. President Obama takes us through his childhood in Hawaii, to his schooling in Jakarta Indonesia to his heritage in Kenya. Three students attended at the urging of their faculty. A big thank you goes out to Gloria Pitts for leading that discussion.
In January we travel through Spain to the Pyramids of Egypt with Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist. During February and March we were in the mist of Afghanistan in 1974 with A thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. A tale of two women in régime torn Afghanistan over 25 year. It is evenly skewed with despair and grave hope. You may recognize Hosseini name, he is also the author of the national bestseller The Kite Runner which movie debut in 2007. Since A Thousand Splendid Suns had so many discussion points we met twice to give it a thorough probe. The Middle Eastern cuisine mentioned throughout the book sparked Dr. Johnson, from the Sociology Department to provide us with colorful and delicious food from Zaytoon Mediterranean Café. Grape leaves wrapped around savory rice, sweet and spicy baby red peppers filled with goat cheese and herbs, stuffed olives and other assorted goodies. Thank You Dr. J.
Our next title Three Cups of Tea, One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time by Greg Motenson and David Relin will launch us into a dangerous and difficult quest to build schools in the wildest parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan in post- 9/11 world.
Join us…
Thursday, May 13, 2010 12:30pm-1:30pm
In a new venue ---Suite 100, Conference room in Bluford Library
(Glass doors to the left of the main entrance)
Showing posts with label Alchemist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alchemist. Show all posts
Friday, April 30, 2010
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Save the Date in 2010
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.
Read it over your Holiday break.
We will meet Tuesday, January 12, 2010 for lunch and discussion
F.D. Bluford Library's seminar room 256-258
12:30-1:30pm
Bring your lunch, Bring a friend , Bring a student
Read it over your Holiday break.
We will meet Tuesday, January 12, 2010 for lunch and discussion
F.D. Bluford Library's seminar room 256-258
12:30-1:30pm
Bring your lunch, Bring a friend , Bring a student
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Winter 2010
Our next adventure in our Across the Pond series is..
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
In 1988 Paulo offered The Alchemist to a small Brazilian publishing house. It only sold 900 copies and the publishers drop it. The Alchemist is nowadays one of the most read books in the world.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992--not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable--in other words, a bag of wind. The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: ``to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation.'' So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, ``Listen to your heart.'' A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver (``concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man''). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits--a far cry from Saint- Exup‚ry's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility. Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls. -- Kirkus Reviews Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP.
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
In 1988 Paulo offered The Alchemist to a small Brazilian publishing house. It only sold 900 copies and the publishers drop it. The Alchemist is nowadays one of the most read books in the world.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992--not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable--in other words, a bag of wind. The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: ``to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation.'' So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, ``Listen to your heart.'' A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver (``concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man''). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits--a far cry from Saint- Exup‚ry's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility. Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls. -- Kirkus Reviews Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP.
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