January Heritage Month Group Read

As discussed in the planning thread ( www.librarything.com/topic/146481 ), there will be a yearlong series of group reads roughly coinciding with the various American "heritage months."
The idea here is to read a book related to a particular group (ethnic, gender, etc.). This won't be a voted-on book we all read, but a free-for-all. Hopefully themes and comparisons will pop up on this thread. Fiction or non-fiction is okay. In the planning thread, there was some discussion about whether it should be "-American" literature or not. I'll leave this up to the individual reader. So for February, you could read a work of African-American literature, or a book about people of African descent in your country (e.g. African-British literature), or something by an African author (e.g. Chinua Achebe).

This month I am going to read Eva Hoffman's memoir Lost in Translation, about moving to American from Poland as a child and the rest of her upbringing.

The schedule:

January - Haitian Heritage Month
Polish American Heritage Month and Irish American Heritage Month

February - Black History Month

March - Womens' History Month

April - Asian American and Pacific Islanders Heritage Month
South Asian Heritage Month
(They overlap so might as well do them at once.)

May - Older Americans Month
Jewish American Heritage Month

June - LGBTQ Pride Month

July - Caribbean American Heritage Month

August - Arab American Heritage Month

September - Hispanic Heritage Month

October - National Disability Employment Awareness Month

November - National American Indian Heritage Month

December - Filipino American History Month

Wonder of wonders, I've got a book by a Polish-American, so I will be reading Being There by Jerzy Kosinski a book about which I know absolutely nothing.

Would you count Mountains Beyond Mountains as Haitian heritage? Most of it takes place in Haiti, I think...I've been wanting to read it.

Rachel, part of the idea behind this group read is to make it flexible enough that most people will have something on their TBR list that will fit with the theme. Also, a book doesn't have to be by a member of a particular group to give insight on their culture or history. My recent read of Uncle Tom's Cabin was by a white woman but still influential on African-American history. So go ahead and read whatever you like! :). But when you finish, write some comments here on what you learned about Haiti from the book.

Looks like I will be browsing my TBR bookcase to see if I have something that will fit the heritage month theme. Will report back if I find anything.

Rachel, whether or not it fits in the challenge, read it! Dr. Paul Farmer is an amazing person.

I believe my ER copy of The Famine Plot should fit this heritage challenge since it's a reason so many Irish came to America.

Huh. I have a book to suit - The Clarinet Polka by Keith Maillard - for the Polish-American theme.

I'm reading Translations, by Brian Friel, for the Irish-American heritage theme. It's about a surveyor's team coming to a village in County Donegal in the early 1800s in order to map the area and Anglicize the Irish Gaelic place names. One of the characters is also planning to emigrate to the States because the Potato Famine is on the horizon.

Kay - I hope you like The Clarinet Polka better than I did. I had a terrible time getting into it (although that's not really what made me stop reading it), and the profanity level was more than I could tolerate. I abandoned it because of that.

Is there a wiki for this thread? If so, I'm not spotting it.

>11 thornton37814: It was discussed in the Group Reads 2 thread, not sure the wiki was ever made. But the list is also posted in the thread with the list of all group read discussion links if you're looking for a place to have the info handy.

Actually, I was looking for a place to post my intended read and see what others are reading in a handy list!

I'll make a wiki when I'm at a real computer. Thanks for the reminder.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Frank McCourt.

If someone is looking for some online Haitian stories (both fiction and non-fiction), Words without Borders has "Writing from Haiti" as the topic of their January issue:
http://wordswithoutborders.org/issue/january-2013

You reminded me that Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt is one of my favourite books. I need to add that to my list.
Frank McCourt is a beautiful writer and his story of triumph over horrendous adversity is truly inspiring.

I am reading Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood for the AlphaCat – M/A, the RandomCAT - new to me author; and AwardCAT - Orange Prize -nominated 1997)
AND for the
75'rs TIOLI challenge #13 - Read a book that has won or was nominated for the Giller Prize (won 1996).

I knew nothing about the book before I started. I was given it as a Christmas gift from my Secret Santa and it just fit these other challenges.

Anyhow, partway into the novel, I have discovered the central charactere is an Irish immigrant to Canada, a young servant working near Kingston, Ontario, who was convicted in 1843 of murdering her employer and his housekeeper-mistress. This is a true story but a fictionalized account.

According to an essay I found on-line, Atwood is going to go into some detail about Grace's Irish roots, so this book, I now know, fits this Heritage challenge. Apparently the immigration from Ireland to Canada took place later and involved mostly Protestant immigrants and most settled in rural Ontario. So, the Canadian experience is much different than the American one where most immigrants were Catholic and settled in larger cities.

I might have to re-read Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes or look at Malachy McCourt's A Monk Swimming, both of which I own and compare.

One thing I discovered in my little internet surfing is that Irish Heritage Month is actually in March. However, I am still proceeding to count this book here. ;-)

I'm bumping this back to the top. Unless I see it, I won't remember that I have a book that fits.

You might want to add a link/mention of this at the top on the main group page. Also need a Wiki.
Totally missed it.
With all the individual threads and group reads it is easy to miss things . . .
I read A Wedding in Haiti in January.