Option #1 Breaking Night: A Memoir of Forgiveness, Survival, and My Journey from Homeless to Harvard, by Liz Murray
From runaway to Harvard student, Murray tells an engaging, powerfully motivational story about turning her life around after growing up the neglected child of drug addicts. When Murray was born in 1980, her former beatnik father was in jail for illegally trafficking in prescription painkillers, and her mother, a cokehead since age 13, had just barely missed losing custody of their year-old daughter, Lisa. Murray and her sister grew up in a Bronx apartment that gradually went to seed, living off government programs and whatever was left after the parents indulged their drug binges; Murray writes that drugs were the "wrecking ball" that destroyed her family-- prompting her mother's frequent institutionalization for drug-induced mental illness and leading to her parents inviting in sexual molesters. By age 15, with the help of her best friend Sam and an elusive hustler, Carlos, she took permanently to the streets, relying on friends, sadly, for shelter. With the death of her mother, her runaway world came to an end, and she began her step-by-step plan to attend an alternative high school, which eventually led to a New York Times scholarship and acceptance to Harvard. In this incredible story of true grit, Murray went from feeling like "the world was filled with people who were repulsed by me" to learning to receive the bountiful generosity of strangers who truly cared.
Option #2 Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett
In an unnamed South American country, a world-renowned soprano sings at a birthday party in honor of a visiting Japanese industrial titan. Alas, in the opening sequence, just as the accompanist kisses the soprano, a ragtag band of 18 terrorists enters the vice-presidential mansion through the air conditioning ducts. Their quarry is the president, who has unfortunately stayed home to watch a favorite soap opera. And thus, from the beginning, things go awry.
Among the hostages are not only Hosokawa and Roxane Coss, the American soprano, but an assortment of Russian, Italian, and French diplomatic types. Meanwhile, a Swiss Red Cross negotiator named Joachim Messner is roped into service while vacationing. He comes and goes, wrangling over terms and demands, and the days stretch into weeks, the weeks into months.
With the omniscience of magic realism, Ann Patchett flits in and out of the hearts and psyches of hostage and terrorist alike, and in doing so reveals a profound, shared humanity. Joined by no common language except music, the 58 international hostages and their captors forge unexpected bonds. Time stands still, priorities rearrange themselves. Ultimately, of course, something has to give, even in a novel so imbued with the rich imaginative potential of magic realism. But in a fractious world, Bel Canto remains a gentle reminder of the transcendence of beauty and love.
Option #3 I Still Dream About You, by Fannie Flagg
From Southern Living Magazine: Fannie Flagg’s new book, I Still Dream About You, is set in a place she knows better than any other, her hometown. Birmingham is not just the setting—it’s a supporting character, with the city’s glamorous past and sometimes complicated present helping to shape a group of women who share a strong bond of friendship. Maggie Fortenberry, Fannie’s latest protagonist, longs for Birmingham’s glory days, with its beautiful train station, grand theaters, and bustling downtown streets. A 60-year-old former Miss Alabama, Maggie is beautiful and sweet, loved and admired—and so out of sorts with the way her life has turned out that she’s busy with a suicide plan involving an egg timer, the Warrior River, and some mighty powerful glue. Classic Fannie.
Millions of readers have been lured by her quirky, dead-on Southern characters and hilarious plot twists, only to get a serious tug at the heartstrings when they least expect it. Whether her setting is Birmingham or Whistle Stop, what Fannie writes about, time and again, are the touching, terrifying, heartbreaking, hysterical, extraordinary, everyday things that make us human, the things that make us seek friendship and love and compassion and community.
So there are the options - get to voting and let me know if Monday, July 25th works for everyone!
