April 16, 2021
The past few weeks have had me thinking a lot about how many things have changed --- and stayed the same --- in the last year. One of the book groups that I belong to has done a combo of in-person and Zoom meetings, with us sometimes skipping a month when life just gets in the way. The group is made up of a lot of young moms, and they have been juggling…a lot. But what has stayed the same? We all are reading. We have a Facebook Group page where we talk about what books we are reading --- and often our next selections are made on that page. What has connected us has been the books --- the desire to share what we have read and to explore what else is out there. We have authors we all love; we also know each other’s tastes. And while everything may not be for everyone, our reading horizons are expanded through our conversations and posts, and we are brought together by our shared comments.
Bookaccino Event on May 12th
Editorial Content for How Beautiful We Were
Teaser
From the celebrated author of the New York Times bestseller BEHOLD THE DREAMERS comes a sweeping, wrenching story about the collision of a small African village and an American oil company.
Promo
From the celebrated author of the New York Times bestseller BEHOLD THE DREAMERS comes a sweeping, wrenching story about the collision of a small African village and an American oil company.
About the Book
From the celebrated author of the New York Times bestseller BEHOLD THE DREAMERS comes a sweeping, wrenching story about the collision of a small African village and an American oil company.
We should have known the end was near. So begins Imbolo Mbue’s powerful second novel, HOW BEAUTIFUL WE WERE. Set in the fictional African village of Kosawa, it tells of a people living in fear amid environmental degradation wrought by an American oil company. Pipeline spills have rendered farmlands infertile. Children are dying from drinking toxic water. Promises of cleanup and financial reparations to the villagers are made --- and ignored. The country’s government, led by a brazen dictator, exists to serve its own interests. Left with few choices, the people of Kosawa decide to fight back. Their struggle will last for decades and come at a steep price.
Told from the perspective of a generation of children and the family of a girl named Thula who grows up to become a revolutionary, HOW BEAUTIFUL WE WERE is a masterful exploration of what happens when the reckless drive for profit, coupled with the ghost of colonialism, comes up against one community’s determination to hold on to its ancestral land and a young woman’s willingness to sacrifice everything for the sake of her people’s freedom.
