Category: 3-BookTalkSometimeCommentary

In the summer of 1885, the Lakota Sioux holy man Sitting Bull toured North America as a member of Buffalo Bill Cody’s famous “Wild West” show. His participation, as Deanne Stillman explains in her book Blood Brothers: The Story of the Strange Friendship between Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill (Simon & Schuster, 2017) linked two celebrities of Gilded Age America into an association that would endure for long afterward. Both men were legends of the American West–Cody for his service as a scout and prowess in killing bison, Sitting Bull for his role as a leader and his association with the Battle of Little Bighorn. Taking advantage of Sitting Bull’s relationship with Annie Oakley, another star performer in his show, Cody succeeded in enlisting his involvement, where he proved a popular draw. Though Sitting Bull’s time with the show was brief, he formed a bond with Cody deep enough to lead Cody to cross the country five years later in an unsuccessful effort to intervene in the events that led to Sitting Bull’s death.

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This month World Book Club is celebrating its 15th birthday and has come to where it all began – in September 2002 - The Edinburgh Book Festival, to talk to Irish literary superstar Sebastian Barry about his poignant and much garlanded novel The Secret Scripture. Now in her hundredth year Roseanne McNulty, once the most beautiful girl in County Sligo, has long been locked up in an mental asylum for reasons which gradually become clear as she decides to put down a secret record of her remarkable story.

Set against an Ireland besieged by conflict The Secret Scripture is at once an epic story of love and heart-rending betrayal and a vivid reminder of the stranglehold that the Catholic Church had on individual lives for much of the twentieth century.

(Picture courtesy of The Irish Times.)

Katy Waldman, Isaac Chotiner, and Laura Miller discuss The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, the sprawling novel by Arundhati Roy about sectarian violence in India. Next month's book will be Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney.

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With an IQ that’s off-the-scale and a hyper-active mind 13-year-old Lou feels out of place amongst the beautiful, confident teenagers in her class. She finds no comfort at home as her mother is in the throes of a profound depression. Her life changes when she meets No, an older homeless girl, whom she immediately feels an affinity with.

Along with a classmate, Lucas, Lou tries to help No to build a life away from the streets. However, No's emotional scars run deep and she pushes Lou's friendship and trust to the limits.

Both poignant and funny, this haunting novel explores homelessness, friendship, love and loss.

(Photo: Delphine de Vigan. Credit: Delphine Jouandeau)

Katy Waldman, Jacob Brogan, and Dan Kois discuss Maile Meloy's novel Do Not Become Alarmed. Next month's book will be The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy.

The Slate Audio Book Club is brought to you by Audible. Audible has the best audiobook performances, the largest library and the most exclusive content. You’ll feel something when you listen. Learn more at Audible.com/AudioBookClub.

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America’s national experience and collective history have always been subject to transnational forces and affected by global events and conditions. In recognition of this reality, the textbook Global Americans: A History of the United States (Cengage, 2017) presents a history of North America and then the United States in which world events and processes are central rather than colorful sidelights. In doing so, the text reflects the diverse experiences of the students it speaks to, as well as their families. Readers will be immersed in an accessible and inclusive American history in which a variety of social, cultural, economic, and geographic dynamics play key roles. The authors want you to see yourselves in the narrative, primary source documents, images, and other media they have assembled. Global Americans reveals the long history of global events that have shaped — and been shaped by — the peoples who have come to constitute the United States.

In this podcast Maria Montoya discusses the story behind the creation and necessity of this textbook, what it hopes to accomplish in classrooms, and the opportunities and challenges of collaborative writing.

Maria E. Montoya earned her Ph.D. from Yale University in 1993 and her BA from Yale in 1986. She is an Associate Professor of History New York University, as well as the Dean of Arts and Science at New York University, Shanghai. She is the author of numerous articles as well as the book Translating Property: The Maxwell Land Grant and the Conflict over Land in the American West, 1840-1900. She has also worked on the AP U.S. History Development Committee and consulted to the College Board.

Lori A. Flores is Associate Professor of History at Stony Brook University (SUNY) and the author of Grounds for Dreaming: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the California Farmworker Movement (Yale, 2016). She is based in Brooklyn.

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This month World Book Club is talking to chart-topping Australian writer Tim Winton about his unforgettable novel Cloudstreet.

Winner of the Miles Franklin Award and recognised as one of the greatest works of Australian literature, Cloudstreet is Tim Winton's sprawling, comic epic about luck and love, fortitude and forgiveness, and the magic of the everyday.

Precipitated by separate personal tragedies, two poor families flee their rural homes to share a "great continent of a house", Cloudstreet, in a suburb of Perth. The Lambs are industrious, united and religious. The Pickleses are gamblers, boozers, fractious, and unlikely landlords.

Over the next twenty years they struggle and strive, laugh and curse, come apart and pull together under the same roof, and try to make the best of their lives.

(Picture: Tim Winton. Credit: BBC.)

Katy Waldman, Jacob Brogan, and Meghan O'Rourke discuss Durga Chew-Bose's collection of essays Too Much and Not the Mood. Next month's book is Do Not Become Alarmed, by Maile Meloy. 

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This month World Book Club is in the BBC Radio Theatre and is talking to one of the most popular and widely read British novelists, Jeffrey Archer, about his stunningly successful novel Kane and Abel.

William Lowell Kane and Abel Rosnovski, one the son of a Boston millionaire, the other a penniless Polish immigrant are two ambitious men born on the same day on opposite sides of the world.

Their paths are destined to cross in the ruthless struggle to build a fortune and an empire. Fuelled by their all-consuming hatred for one another, over 60 years and three generations, through war, marriage, fortune, and disaster, Kane and Abel battle for the success and triumph that only one man can have.

(Photo: Jeffrey Archer and Mary Archer attend the press night of Photograph 51, 2015, London. Credit: Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

Katy Waldman, Meghan O'Rourke, and Emily Bazelon discuss Margaret Atwood's dystopic novel The Handmaid's Tale and the Hulu television adaptation.

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