Zeitoun floats to the top

I am pleased to announce that our next book is Zeitoun, Dave Eggers' account of the Zeitoun family's ordeals in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Though this will be our first nonfiction book, reviewers say it reads like a work of literature. In The New York Times Book Review one wrote, "Imagine Charles Dickens, his sentimentality in check but his journalistic eyes wide open, roaming New Orleans after it was buried by Hurricane Katrina."

And Vanity Fair's James Wolcott wrote: "[It’s] unmistakably a narrative feat, slowly pulling the reader into the oncoming vortex without literary trickery or theatrical devices, reminiscent of Mailer’s Executioner’s Song but less craftily self-conscious in the exercise of its restraint. Humanistic, that is, in the highest, best, least boring sense of the word.”

The book also offers a rich culinary experience. Abdulrahman Zeitoun, the main character, is originally from Syria, but made New Orleans his adoptive home. I don't know about you, but I'm already looking forward to Cathy's menu for our literary evening. In the meantime, here's an article on Egger's book and the Zeitoun's experiences in The Times-Picayune.