AV Book Club
- Fiction by Aspie / Autistic Authors
About the AV Book Club
If you enjoy reading fiction and would like to have an incentive to read more, expand your reading list, and to meet with others to share your thoughts and insights and to hear others' perspectives, consider joining the AV Book Club for your next literary adventure.
In July 2022, we will discuss Catfish and Mandala, by Andrew X. Pham.
Catfish and Mandala is the story of an American odyssey - a solo bicycle voyage around the Pacific Rim to Vietnam - made by a young Vietnamese-American man in pursuit of both his adopted homeland and his forsaken fatherland.
Andrew X. Pham was born in Vietnam and raised in California. His father had been a POW of the Vietcong; his family came to America as "boat people." Following the suicide of his sister, Pham quit his job, sold all his possessions, and embarked on a year-long bicycle journey that took him through the Mexican desert, around a thousand-mile loop from Narita to Kyoto in Japan; and, after five months and 2,357 miles, to Saigon, where he finds "nothing familiar in the bombed-out darkness." In Vietnam, he's taken for Japanese or Korean by his countrymen, except, of course, by his relatives, who doubt that as a Vietnamese he has the stamina to complete his journey ("only Westerners can do it"); and in the United States he's considered anything but American. A vibrant, picaresque memoir written with narrative flair and an eye-opening sense of adventure, Catfish and Mandala is an unforgettable search for cultural identity.
This session is facilitated by David, our Book Club Facilitator. All AV volunteer group leaders share the lived experience of their group participants and welcome new attendees. All AV group leaders have a Working with Children Check.
Cost: FREE for AV members.
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If cost is a barrier, please contact Jenni.
All attendees must register before attending an AV activity.
For online activities, you will need to register to receive the Zoom meeting link.
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