The Global Issues Community Book Club is pleased to announce its 2008-09 schedule as we explore the theme: Exploring Contemporary China.

Book discussions will be held at Brewed Awakenings Coffee Shop, 2636 W. Central Ave
Meetings are free and open to the public.

Tuesday, November 11, 7:30 pm
Book: Red Azalea, Anchee Min

From Booklist: An honest and frightening memoir of growing up in Communist China during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. Her autobiography is not just a coming-of-age story or history lesson; it is a tale of inner strength and courage that transcends time and place.

Monday, February 9, 7:30 pm
Book: American Shaolin: An Odyssey in the New China, Matthew Polly

From Publishers Weekly:  In this smoothly written memoir, 98-pound weakling Polly makes the age-old decision to turn his nerdy self into a fighting machine. Polly's quest for manhood leads this guy from Topeka, Kans., to the Shaolin Temple, ancient home of the fighting monks and setting for 10,000 chop-socky movies. As much a student of Chinese culture as he is a martial artist, Polly derives a great deal of humor from the misunderstandings that follow a six-foot-three laowai (white foreigner) in a China taking its first awkward steps into capitalism after Tiananmen Square.

Tuesday, April 7, 7:30 pm
Book: Death of a Red Heroine, Qui Xiaolong

From Publishers Weekly: This political mystery offers a peek into the tightly sealed, often crooked world of post-Tiananmen Square China. Chen Cao, a poet and translator assigned to be chief inspector, has to investigate the murder of Guan Hongying, a young woman celebrated as a National Model Worker who kept her personal life strictly and mysteriously confidential. Tiptoeing around touchy politics and using investigative tactics bordering on blackmail, Chen slowly pieces together the motives behind the crime. The author, himself a poet and critic, peppers the story with allusions to classical Chinese literature, juxtaposing poignant poetry with a gruesome murder so that the novel reads like the translation of an ancient text imposed over a modern tale of intrigue.

All discussions will be led by Josh Lavetter-Keidan.

Sponsored by the Global Education Program at Maumee Valley Country Day School.