Banned Book Club "On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous" by Ocean Vuong

117 S. Pineapple Ave.,Sarasota FL 34236

23 August, 2022

Description

This monthly book club is dedicated to reading and protecting the most important and threatened books for our generation. August's pick is On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong - a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. A brutally honest exploration of race, class, sexuality, masculinity, and aging and dying, Vuong asks questions central to our American moment (immersed as we are in violence, addiction, and polarization), undergirded by compassion and tenderness.While we'll meet in-person at our new store location at 117 S. Pineapple Ave, you can choose to join via Zoom instead. The only cost: The price of the book ($17), which includes your copy of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous to be picked up anytime before our meeting.About On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous: Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born - a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam - and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one's own story as it is about obliterating silence. With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years. Longlisted for the 2019 National Book Award for Fiction, the Carnegie Medal in Fiction, the 2019 Aspen Words Literacy Prize, and the PEN/Hemingway Debut Novel Award. About Book Bans: Book bans in public schools have recurred throughout American history, and remain an issue of concern to us at Bookstore1Sarasota. Over the past year, the scope of such censorship has expanded rapidly. In response, PEN America has collated an Index of School Book Bans, offering a snapshot of the trend. The index documents decisions to ban books in school libraries and classrooms in the U.S. from July 1, 2021 to March 31, 2022. Check it out and join us in our efforts to protect free expression and students' first amendment rights. You can view the index here. .......................................................................... All signed up and unable to go? Please let us know! Seating is limited and there may be people on our waitlist who would like to to take your place. Please send an email to [email protected] ASAP and hopefully we'll see you next time. Click here to go to the Bookstore1Sarasota website.