The Book Club!
Sagar Jain ’14: Each semester, the book club at Babson College selects books based on a particular country and its culture. This semester, the country selected is India. Members of the book club meet once every week to share their views on the books. The three books selected for this year include “The Beautiful and the Damned” by Siddhartha Deb, “An Atlas of Impossible Longing” by Anuradha Roy, and “Beautiful Thing” by Sonia Faleiro. “The Beautiful and the Damned” depicts the lives of farmers, engineers, and factory workers to reveal some harsh facts related to the number of suicides committed by farmers in India and the low per capita income of a large percentage of Indian population. “An Atlas of Impossible Longing” narrates the story of the struggle of a widower with “forbidden love” for his cousin. It also narrates the story of “forbidden love” between a motherless daughter and a casteless orphan. By describing the family life of these characters, the author tries to depict issues related to caste, religious, and economic barriers prevalent in India. The books selected by the book club are rich with cultural references and provide a great insight into the Indian society for someone who is alien to its culture.
Next semester the book club is going to select books from Italy!
PS: Please join the book club. The discussions take place on Mondays, 5-6 pm in Reynolds 244.
For more information contact Michele Oshima at moshima@babson.edu or check out the Literary Arts page on the Sorenson Website.
(Photo Credit: http://ilovebookstonoend.tumblr.com/)
Sagar Jain, Class of 2014