Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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“What we search for in fiction is not so much reality but the epiphany of truth.”

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi

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Nowhere Book Bingo 25: A Bookish Memoir/biography CBR17 Pie Chart: Education CBR17 Bingo: Citizen (Nafisi lived and taught in Iran during increasingly more dictatorial strictures against its citizens) Official summary: Every Thursday morning for two years in the Islamic Republic of Iran, a bold and inspired teacher named Azar Nafisi secretly gathered seven of her most committed female students to read forbidden Western classics. As Islamic morality squads staged arbitrary raids in Tehran, fundamentalists seized hold of the universities, and a blind censor stifled artistic […]

There’s Something Happening Here

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Best for: People interested in one story of life under authoritarian governments. In a nutshell: A professor uses literature as the framework for her memoir of life teaching in Iran. Line that sticks with me: “Lack of empathy was to my mind the central sin of the regime, from which all the others flowed.” Why I chose it: I flew the weekend after the election, and saw this in the airport. I figured perhaps it would be good to study up on life under leadership […]

Probably my biggest disappointment in 2014.

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I read Reading Lolita in Tehran over eight years ago and loved it. I recognized the immense privilege I’ve had to read an array of literature without fear of arrest or persecution. I began to appreciate the power of a good book. I was excited to hear that Nafisi had a new book about the power of imagination in American fiction. And what a disappointment it turned out to be. The Republic of Imagination hinges on the argument that America is no longer the republic […]



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