Coastline - Title Wave 2008

Coos County Library Service District - Title Wave 2008

Everybody start reading Origin!

Origin, by Diana Abu-Jaber, is the book selected for the Title Wave: Coos County Reads county-wide reading project for 2008.

Diana Abu-Jaber teaches at Portland State University and divides her time between Portland and Miami. She is the author of Crescent, which was awarded the 2004 PEN Center USA Award for Literary Fiction and the Before Columbus Foundation's American Book Award and was named one of the twenty best novels of 2003 by The Christian Science Monitor. Diana Abu-Jaber also authored Arabian Jazz, which won the 1994 Oregon Book Award and was nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award.

Reviews

Interviews with Diana Abu-Jaber

Schedule of Diana Abu-Jaber’s Readings, Talks and TitleWave Special Events

Wednesday, April 16

Jim Pex, a nationally recognized forensic scientist based in North Bend, gives a free talk about forensic science and crime scene investigations, on Wednesday, April 16, at 7 pm, at the North Bend Public Library. Read more about this event.

Saturday, April 26

"Forensics A to Z" Martha Burkett, retired Police Commander and former Southwestern Oregon Community College Justice Services instructor with special guest Kris Karcher, Coos County Chief Deputy Medical Examiner and Forensic Nurse, gives a free talk about forensic science and crime scene investigations, on Saturday, April 26, at 11 am, at the Coos Bay Public Library, Myrtlewood Room.

Saturday, May 3, 2008

COOS BAY PUBLIC LIBRARY 2:00 – 4:00 pm

Diana Abu-Jaber, 45-minute talk/reading followed by audience Q & A and book signing.

BANDON PUBLIC LIBRARY 7:00 – 9:00 pm

Diana Abu-Jaber, 45-minute talk/reading followed by audience Q & A and book signing.

Get Involved

The libraries of Coos County are encouraging everyone to read Abu-Jaber’s newest novel, Origin, for our second "Title Wave" program, in which everyone reads a great book and gets to meet the author at lectures in Coos County. Abu-Jaber speaks in Coos Bay, and Bandon, May 3, 2008.

All libraries have multiple copies of Origin, plus the unabridged CD version. The book can be purchased at a substantial discount at Books By The Bay in North Bend and Colette's Crepes on Broadway in North Bend. Multiple copies of the authors’ three other books are also available. All librarians in Coos County urge everyone to start reading Origin in advance of Diana Abu-Jaber’s May visit.

Click here to view copies of this title in Coastline.

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About the Book

Lena Dawson is a fingerprint examiner at a crime lab in the small city of Syracuse, New York, comfortable in her minute, predictable world of forensics. During one snowy, frigid upstate winter, Lena’s routine is broken by a series of crib deaths, indistinguishable from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome but for the fevered testimony of one distraught mother with connections in high places. Soon the deaths draw the attention of the police and the national media and raise the possibility of the inconceivable: that an infant murderer is at work.

Orphaned as a child, out of place as an adult, gifted with delicate powers of intuition, Lena finds herself playing a critical role in the case, even as her secure world begins to unravel. Her colleagues scheme and bicker; her controlling, overprotective ex-husband tries to outmaneuver a suspected rival; community activists promote fears of a new kind of terrorism. And then there is the mystery of her own childhood to solve, her late-night dreams of walking through the rain forest-unexplainable dreams. Could the improbable deaths of a half-dozen babies be somehow connected to her own improbable survival?

The beauty and originality of Diana Au-Jaber’s writing are shot through by deft, page-turning tension and atmosphere, tugging the reader to an unforgettable conclusion.

Read Chapter One!

http://www.dianaabujaber.com/originchap1.html

Reviews and information:

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Diana Abu-Jaber is an author and a teacher at Portland State University. She was born in 1960 in Syracuse, New York, to a Jordanian father and an American (Irish-German) mother. When she was seven, her family moved to Jordan for two years, and she has lived between the U.S. and Jordan ever since. Abu-Jaber graduated with a Ph.D. in Creative Writing from SUNY Binghamton in 1986. Her first novel, Arabian Jazz, published by Harcourt Brace in 1993, won the Oregon Book Award, and was a finalist for the National PEN/Hemingway award.

Abu-Jaber won a National Endowment for the Arts award supporting the writing of her second novel, Memories of Birth. In addition, Abu-Jaber has published numerous short stories electronically and in literary magazines such as Ploughshares, the North American Review, and Story. She has taught at the University of Oregon and UCLA and is currently Writer-in-Residence at Portland State University, where she teaches Creative Writing, Feminist Voices, Middle Eastern Literatures, and Postcolonial Literatures.

She currently lives much of the year in Miami and teaches at Portland State University. She often writes about issues of identity and culture.

In her own words .....
I grew up inside the shape of my father's stories. A Jordanian immigrant, Dad regaled us with tales about himself, his country, and his family that both entertained us and instructed us about the place he'd come from and the way he saw the world. These stories exerted a powerful influence on my imagination, in terms of what I chose to write about, the style of my language, and the form my own stories took.

People often ask me about my American mother, and whether she also told stories. Actually, my mother is not a native storyteller in the way my father is, but it may be that she has taught me something even more valuable, which is how to listen to stories. She made a space in our home for my father to invent himself, and her attentiveness and focus showed me that sometimes being quiet can be just as transformative as speaking.

I have two younger sisters and we grew up in little snow-bound houses in Syracuse, New York, and then spent some time living among courtyards and trellised jasmine and extended family in Amman, Jordan, before we all moved back to Syracuse again. My father could not make up his mind about which country we should live in. In America, he constantly reminded us that we were good Arab girls; we weren't allowed to go out to parties or school dances. But then he encouraged us to study singlemindedly, to compete as intensely as any boy, and to always make our own way in the world.

My father's brothers are doctors and scholars and politicians. And it was determined that I would receive my undergraduate degree from SUNY-Oswego because one of my uncles taught there and could keep an eye on me while I lived in a dormitory. When I finally struck out on my own to do my graduate work, I instinctively sought out mentors—the next best thing to uncles, in my mind—going for my M.A. at the University of Windsor, to study with Joyce Carol Oates, and then my Ph.D. from SUNY-Binghamton, to work with John Gardner.

In school, I started writing stories that I think shared a certain kinship with my father's stories in that they gave me a way to imagine myself in the world. After graduate school, I taught creative writing, film studies, and contemporary literature at a number of different universities, including the University of Nebraska, the University of Michigan, UCLA, and the University of Oregon. All of these places had something new to teach me about being an American. I moved around for work, but I think I also like to move. While there's a certain rootlessness and solitude to nomadism, I suppose that I am, as my father asserts, fundamentally a Bedouin. I am driven to exploration and conversation despite my best efforts to sit quietly in one place. I would just as happily host a dinner party as give a reading, and my chronically social nature frequently disrupts anything like a real work ethic.

Even in my work, I am restless—while I'm prone to write novels, I am also crazy about writing restaurant and film reviews, interviewing politicians and profiling county fairs, and fantasizing about writing a Great Arab-American Screenplay. My new idea is to live beside the ocean with my husband and my nervous little Italian greyhound, and to work outside under an umbrella with a pitcher of lemonade and a plate of cookies. Once again, I will attempt to settle down and write for hours and hours at a time, the way I am told one must. But I suppose that I will end up, as usual, inviting friends or family over so I don't eat all the cookies myself. We will sit outside together, contemplating our origins and destinations, and begin telling each other stories again.

Visit Diana’s Website:

http://www.dianaabujaber.com/

For a complete summary of Diana Abu-Jaber’s academic and professional history please click on the link below:

Academic and Professional History

Read Interviews With the Author

http://www.bookbrowse.com/author_interviews/full/index.cfm?author_number=915

http://www.curledup.com/intabuj3.htm

http://www.powells.com/essays/abujaber.html

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More from Diana Abu-Jaber

Click below to view copies of other books by Diana Abu-Jaber

The Language of Baklava: A Memoir

Diana Abu-Jaber’s vibrant, humorous memoir weaves together stories of being raised by a food-obsessed Jordanian father with tales of Lake Ontario shish kabob cookouts and goat stew feasts under Bedouin tents in the desert.

Crescent: A Novel

Abu-Jaber weaves the story of a love affair between a comely chef and a handsome, haunted Near Eastern Studies professor together with a fanciful tale of a mother's quest to find her wayward son in this beautifully imagined and timely novel, which explores private emotions and global politics with both grace and conviction.

Arabian Jazz: A Novel

A Jordanian widower and his family adjust to life in upstate New York in this impressive first novel

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Additional TitleWave Events

Wednesday, April 16, at 7 pm:

Jim Pex, a nationally recognized forensic scientist based in North Bend, gives a free talk about forensic science and crime scene investigations, on Wednesday, April 16, at 7 pm, at the North Bend Public Library.

This special program is a prelude to the May 3 visit by writer Diana Abu-Jaber, author of the mystery novel "Origin." In Origin, Abu-Jaber's heroine is Lena Dawson, a fingerprint expert investigating crib deaths in Syracuse, New York.

Forensic expert Pex has received awards from the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, and twice received the Public Service Award from the Oregon Washington Lawman's Association. He's also received commendations from the Oregon State Police for outstanding service, and has appeared on Dateline, Court TV, Good Morning America, and the Discover Channel. He's given expert testimony in courts in Oregon, Washington, California, Montana, Idaho, and Kansas. Mr. Pex received special recognition in Ann Rule's book Small Sacrifics for his work in the Diane Down's murder case in Lane County.

Pex, who lives in North Bend, was an instructor at Southwestern Oregon Community College and with Oregon's police academy. He's also taught classes in crime scene reconstruction and bloodstain pattern analysis in other states.

Pex's talk gives readers an expert's look at forensic sciences before Title Wave writer Abu-Jaber speaks at the Coos Bay Public Library on Saturday, May 3 at 2 pm, and at the Bandon Public Library at 7 pm.

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Sponsors

Special thanks to our sponsors!

Books by the Bay

Coos Bay Public Library Foundation

Coos County Library Service District

Coquille Public Library

Dora Public Library Corporation

Friends of the Coos Bay Public Library

Friends of the North Bend Public Library

Myrtle Point Library Board

Southwestern Oregon Community College

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Participating Bookstores

The following local merchants have this title available for purchase at a discount:

Colette's Crepes

3229 Broadway

North Bend, OR

751-1475

About the Program

What happens when everybody reads the same book? The community comes together to celebrate the power of books and reading.

Modeled after similar projects which take place in libraries throughout the U. S., the goal of “Title Wave: Coos County Reads” is to get people throughout Coos County reading and connecting with each other around one great book. Friends of the Library groups from Coos County public libraries sponsor the program. The Friends groups, library boards and staff are excited about this program that we hope will promote literacy, foster ideas through reading and discussion, provide dialog across communities that will be forums for understanding different points of view, and provide an enriching experience for people of all ages in our county.

The libraries of Coos County invite everyone to read Diana Abu-Juber’s latest novel, Origin, and to explore the many facets of the book with each other.

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For More Information Contact the Library Directors:

Bandon Public Library, 347-3221, Deidre Krumper

Coos Bay Public Library, 269-1101, Carol Ventgen

Coos County Library Service District, 888-7393, Mary Jane Fisher

Coquille Public Library, 396-2167, Anne Conner

Dora Public Library, 572-6009, Betty Vaughn

Lakeside Public Library, 759-4432, Nadine Goodrich

Marshfield High School Library, 267-1405, Peggy Christensen

Myrtle Point Public Library, 572-2591, Barbara Caffey

North Bend High School Library, 756-8328, Laurie Nordahl

North Bend Public Library, 756-0400, Gary Sharp

Powers Public Library, 439-5311, Melinda Ellis

Southwestern Oregon Community College Library, 888-7431, Sharon Smith