Greenwich Reads Together is a community-wide reading experience which engages all of Greenwich in exploring a single book. Zeitoun, by Dave Eggers, is the book that has been chosen as the 2012 selection for Greenwich Reads Together. The Book Selection Committee, composed of Greenwich Library staff from across several departments, focused on selecting the one book that will span the community in appeal and will lend itself to engaging public programs.
When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a prosperous Syrian-American and father of four, chose to stay through the storm to protect his house and contracting business. In the days after, he traveled the flooded streets in a secondhand canoe, passing on supplies and helping those he could. But, on September 6, 2005, Zeitoun abruptly disappeared. Eggers’s riveting nonfiction book, three years in the making, explores Zeitoun’s roots in Syria, his marriage to Kathy—an American who converted to Islam—and their children, and the surreal atmosphere (in New Orleans and the United States generally) in which what happened to Abdulrahman Zeitoun became possible. Visit Greenwich Library’s website for more information on the book.
