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Evening Book Club: “How Beautiful We Were” by Imbolo Mbue

Tuesday, April 16, 2024
7:00 pm - 8:00 pm

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ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, People • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Esquire, Good Housekeeping, The Christian Science Monitor, Marie Claire, Ms. magazine, BookPage, Kirkus Reviews

A fearless young woman from a small African village starts a revolution against an American oil company in this sweeping, inspiring novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Behold the Dreamers.“Mbue reaches for the moon and, by the novel’s end, has it firmly held in her hand.”—NPR We should have known the end was near. So begins Imbolo Mbue’s powerful second novel, How Beautiful We Were. Set in the fictional African village of Kosawa, it tells of a people living in fear amid environmental degradation wrought by an American oil company. Pipeline spills have rendered farmlands infertile. Children are dying from drinking toxic water. Promises of cleanup and financial reparations to the villagers are made—and ignored. The country’s government, led by a brazen dictator, exists to serve its own interests. Left with few choices, the people of Kosawa decide to fight back. Their struggle will last for decades and come at a steep price.
 
Told from the perspective of a generation of children and the family of a girl named Thula who grows up to become a revolutionary, How Beautiful We Were is a masterful exploration of what happens when the reckless drive for profit, coupled with the ghost of colonialism, comes up against one community’s determination to hold on to its ancestral land and a young woman’s willingness to sacrifice everything for the sake of her people’s freedom.

 

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We will meet in the upstairs Gallery space from 7 – 8 pm, and refreshments will be served. Our Evening Book Club is open to one and all, whether or not you are a Morristown or Morris Township resident.  Please feel free to join us even if you didn’t get a chance to finish the book. Copies of the book are reserved for Book Club members at the main circulation desk.  Ask a librarian for a copy.  If you have any questions about this book club, please email morristownreaders@mmt.mainlib.org with the subject line “Evening Book Club”.

We look forward to seeing you there!