Happy World Book Day from the Dabney Library!

It’s World Book Day, everyone! To celebrate, we’ve put together a list of nine awesome books from around the world that you can find at the DSLCC Library!

1. A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende

Spain:

Located in our Popular Reading section, “In the late 1930s, civil war gripped Spain. General Franco and his Fascists overthrew the government; hundreds of thousands fled over the mountains to the French border. Roser, a pregnant young widow, finds her life intertwined with that of Victor Dalmau, an army doctor and the brother of her deceased love. To survive, the two must unite in a marriage neither of them wants; Sponsored by poet Pablo Neruda, they embark on the SS Winnipeg along with 2,200 other refugees in search of a new life. Emigrate to Chile as the rest of Europe erupts in World War, they discover their trials are just beginning.”

2. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Nigeria:

Description from Penguin Randomhouse: “With effortless grace, celebrated author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie illuminates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra’s impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in southeastern Nigeria during the late 1960s. We experience this tumultuous decade alongside five unforgettable characters: Ugwu, a thirteen-year-old houseboy who works for Odenigbo, a university professor full of revolutionary zeal; Olanna, the professor’s beautiful young mistress who has abandoned her life in Lagos for a dusty town and her lover’s charm; and Richard, a shy young Englishman infatuated with Olanna’s willful twin sister Kainene. Half of a Yellow Sun is a tremendously evocative novel of the promise, hope, and disappointment of the Biafran war.”

3. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Afghanistan:

Description from Penguin Randomhouse: “The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friend ship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father’s servant, caught in the tragic sweep of history, The Kite Runner transports readers to Afghanistan at a tense and crucial moment of change and destruction. A powerful story of friendship, it is also about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption; and an exploration of the power of fathers over sons—their love, their sacrifices, their lies. Since its publication in 2003 Kite Runner has become a beloved, one-of-a-kind classic of contemporary literature, touching millions of readers, and launching the career of one of America’s most treasured writers.”

4. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Colombia:

Description from Harper Collins Publishers: “One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendiá family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad and alive with unforgettable men and women—brimming with truth, compassion, and a lyrical magic that strikes the soul—this novel is a masterpiece in the art of fiction.”

5. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

Cuba:

Description from Amazon: “The Old Man and the Sea is one of Hemingway's most enduring works. Told in language of great simplicity and power, it is the story of an old Cuban fisherman, down on his luck, and his supreme ordeal -- a relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream.  Here Hemingway recasts, in strikingly contemporary style, the classic theme of courage in the face of defeat, of personal triumph won from loss. Written in 1952, this hugely successful novella confirmed his power and presence in the literary world and played a large part in his winning the 1954 Nobel Prize for Literature.”

6. Ulysses by James Joyce

Ireland:

Description from Wikipedia: “Ulysses chronicles the peripatetic appointments and encounters of Leopold Bloom in Dublin in the course of an ordinary day, 16 June 1904. Ulysses is Kiki the Latinised name of Odysseus, the hero of Homer’s epic poem the Odyssey, and the novel establishes a series of parallels between the poem and the novel, with structural correspondences between the characters and experiences of Leopold Bloom and Odysseus, Molly Bloom and Penelope, and Stephen Dedalus and Telemachus, in addition to events and themes of the early 20th-century context of modernism, Dublin, and Ireland's relationship to Britain. The novel is highly allusive and also imitates the styles of different periods of English literature.”

7. You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me: A Memoir by Sherman Alexie

Native American:

Find this book in our popular reading section. Description from our catalog record: “When his mother passed away at the age of 78, Sherman Alexie responded the only way he knew how: he wrote. The result is this memoir. Featuring 78 poems and 78 essays, Alexie shares raw, angry, funny, profane, tender memories of a childhood few can imagine -- growing up dirt-poor on an Indian reservation, one of four children raised by alcoholic parents. Throughout, a portrait emerges of his mother as a beautiful, mercurial, abusive, intelligent, complicated woman. You Don't Have To Say You Love Me is an account of a complicated relationship, an unflinching and unforgettable remembrance.”

8. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

United States:

Description from Barnes & Noble: “One of the best-loved stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than forty million copies worldwide, served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture, and was voted one of the best novels of the twentieth century by librarians across the country. A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father—a crusading local lawyer—risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.”

9. Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood

Canada:

Description from Penguin Randomhouse: “Considered to be her most autobiographical work, Cat’s Eye, Margaret Atwood’s critically acclaimed seventh novel, is the story of Elaine Risley, the daughter of a forest entomologist and controversial artist in her fifties who returns to Toronto for a retrospective of her work. In her moment of professional glory, she becomes consumed by vivid images of her past, especially those of Cordelia, her best friend and emotional counterpart who waged lavish cruelties on her as a girl. Atwood employs her wry humor, rich irony, and keen eye for detail in a brilliant exploration of the treacherous terrain of girlhood and the historical geography of Toronto from the 1940s to the 1980s.”