CAUGHT IN EVENTS

CAUGHT IN EVENTS

Zeitoun (Hardcover)

By Dave Eggers
$24.00
ISBN-13: 9781934781630
Availability: Special Order - Subject to Availability
Published: McSweeney's Books, 7/2009
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His wife and their children evacuated New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina swept the Gulf Coast, but Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a Syrian-born contractor, stayed behind to look after his house and those he was working on. When the storm had passed and floods inundated his city, Zeitoun believed he was meant to help as many people as he could. Eventually, though, he was arrested on an unspecified charge and taken to a makeshift jail where his pleas for understanding and justice were met with indifference and mistrust. Dave Eggers’s Zeitoun (McSweeney’s, $24) is a gripping piece of narrative non-fiction, recounting just one personal story in a disaster that affected millions of people. Zeitoun’s story of altruism countered by prejudice and violence, though, is one all too representative of our recent history. Mark LaFramboise

Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman (Hardcover)

By Jon Krakauer
$27.95
ISBN-13: 9780385522267
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Doubleday, 9/2009
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One of Jon Krakauer’s many strengths as a writer is his ability to take two stories and weave them together to make one fascinating account. In Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman (Doubleday, $27.95), the tales of Afghanistan and Pat Tillman come together tragically at a small canyon near Pakistan’s border where Tillman was killed by friendly fire from his own platoon. Krakauer discusses the subsequent military cover-up of the details of Tillman’s death and how Tillman’s family forced the truth to be told. The reporting includes hundreds of interviews, on-the-ground research in Afghanistan, and excerpts from Tillman’s journals and letters. What shines through all of this, though, is the story of a thoughtful, dedicated, and exceptional young man driven by his moral compass in all things, and the effect his brief life had on so many. Bill Leggett

Strength in What Remains (Hardcover)

By Tracy Kidder
$26.00
ISBN-13: 9781400066216
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Random House, 8/2009
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The exemplar of the nonfiction narrative, Tracy Kidder’s Strength In What Remains (Random House, $26) tells a moving story about a young man named Deogratius who escapes from death in Burundi and arrives on our shores penniless, friendless, and with no English. Through his intelligence, diligence, and sweetness, he does find friends who help him. He goes from sleeping in Central Park and delivering bags for Gristide’s to attending Columbia School of General Studies and Dartmouth Medical School. Before graduating he decided to return to Burundi and establish a health center; it is there that Kidder visits him. Deogratius’s story represents what the United States at its best has to offer the world: a haven, opportunity, and support, and Kidder feels that our country gains as much by this as the individuals assisted. Carla Cohen