One Amazing Thing by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni has been selected as the featured read of the One Book One Community program for 2011-12, according to the organization's executive committee. The book begins on a late afternoon in an Indian visa office in an unnamed American city. Most customers have come and gone, but nine people remain. When an earthquake rips through the afternoon lull, trapping these nine wildly individual characters together, their focus first jolts to a collective struggle to survive. When the psychological and emotional stress seems nearly too much for them to bear, a young graduate student suggests that each tell a personal tale, "one amazing thing" from their lives, which they have never told anyone before. As their surprising stories of romance, marriage, family, political upheaval, and self-discovery unfold against the urgency of their life-or-death circumstances, the novel proves the transcendent power of stories and the meaningfulness of human expression itself. One Amazing Thing is a passionate creation about survival - and about the reasons to survive.
One Amazing Thing was selected among many books that were nominated by members of the Alliance community, according to Pat Stone, director of Rodman Public Library, who chairs the committee.
"This is the ninth year of One Book One Community in the Alliance area, and it is always a challenge finding a book with broad appeal and realizing that one of our criteria is an appearance by the author," Stone said. "With the selection of One Amazing Thing we have a book that will have broad appeal and lead to meaningful programming and discussions."
Stone said the programming leading to the author's appearance is still to be determined but Divakaruni is committed to appearing in Alliance on March 22, 2012 at 7 p.m. in the Mount Union Theatre. Divakaruni is an award-winning author, poet and teacher of writing. Her work has been published in over 50 magazines, including the Atlantic Monthly and The New Yorker, and her writing has been included in over 50 anthologies. Her books have been translated into 29 languages, including Dutch, Hebrew and Japanese. Born in Kolkata, India, she came to the United States for her graduate studies, receiving a Master's degree in English from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. Divakaruni currently lives in Houston, Texas and teaches in the nationally ranked Creative Writing program at the University of Houston. Two of her books, The Mistress of Spices and Sister of My Heart, have been made into movies by filmmakers Gurinder Chadha and Paul Berges (an English film) and Suhasini Mani Ratnam (a Tamil TV serial) respectively. Mistress of Spices was shortlisted for the Orange Prize.
The selected books for the past seven years have been The Color of Water by James McBride, Riding the Bus with My Sister by Rachel Simon, Real Time by Pnina Moed-Kass, Beyond the River by Ann Hagedorn, Plenty by Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon, Blood Done Sign My Name by Timothy Tyson, Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson, and Make the Impossible Possible by Bill Strickland.
"We would not have the opportunity to bring the author to Alliance if not for the resources provided by our partners, including the Friends of Rodman Public Library, University of Mount Union, The Greater Alliance Foundation and The Review," Stone said. "We are also pleased to report that a number of teachers in the Alliance City Schools, Sebring, Marlington and West Branch local schools have committed to teaching from the book."
One Amazing Thing is available at the University Bookstore and Rodman Public Library. The cost of the book is $10. Several copies also are available for checkout at Rodman Public Library and the University of Mount Union Library.
Members of the One Book executive committee, in addition to Stone are Harry Paidas, Cheryl Paine, Diane Thomas, Sandra Giese, Nicole Edwards, Libby Patterson, Michael Zerbe, Steve Daskalov, Chris Schillig and Joann Jones.