Season Handbook 2021-2022 Draft Sept 28

Cultural

ZOOM BOOK TALKS

WITH SANDRA DIDNER

JANUARY 12, 2022 KLARA AND THE SUN By Kazuno Ishiguro

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro is a haunting novel that depicts how friendship, love, and achievement are affected in a rapidly changing modern world in which built- in obsolescence, genetic “lifting” and AI friends are the norm. Ishiguro won the Booker Prize in 1985 and the Nobel Prize in 2017, however, this latest novel narrated by the empathetic robot Klara may be his most moving work. Through Klara, Ishiguro analyzes our technologically dependent world and how this dependency affects humans emotionally, physically, and sociologically. Klara is one of the most endearing literary characters in modern fiction. This book is short-listed for the 2021 Booker Prize.

FEBRUARY 9, 2022 SPARKS LIKE STARS By Nadia Hashimi

Sparks Like Stars is a timely novel by Nadia Hashimi, an Afghani-American pediatrician, who beautifully communicates the story of Sitara, the ten-year old daughter of the chief adviser to the president of Afghanistan. She witnesses the murder of her family in the 1978 Russian coup but is rescued by one of the assassins and brought to the home of an American diplomat serving in Afghanistan. Through Sitara, we learn the history of the constant invasions of Afghanistan from the time of Alexander the Great to today. Although the American diplomat arranges her hair- raising escape to America, she never forgets her murdered family and her country. Her remembrance of Afghanistan’s once great art and culture and how it has changed via both foreign and tribal conquests is eloquently rendered. As an adult she becomes an oncologist and one of her patients is the very assassin who rescued her. Her struggle to deal with the memories he awakes is suspenseful and emotionally compelling. The book imparts an understanding of Afghanistan that illuminates the international intrigue and internal treachery devastating this nation through a young girl’s eyes.

29 2021-2022 Season Handbook

Location Subject to Change