Take A Leaf Out Of Their Books: What Book Clubs In Abu Dhabi Are REading This September

Ravenous Readers, Abu Dhabi (info HERE) -fiction

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

Single mum Jane has just moved to town. She's got her little boy in tow - plus the secret she's been carrying for five years. On the first day of the school run she meets Madeline - a force to be reckoned with, who remembers everything and forgives no one - and Celeste, the kind of beautiful woman who makes the world stop and stare, but is inexplicably ill at ease.

​They both take Jane under their wing - while careful to keep their own secrets under wraps. But a minor incident involving the children of all three women rapidly escalates: playground whispers become spiteful rumours until no one can tell the truth from the lies. Which is when the secrets come out - and now someone is going to pay with their life .

To buy, click HERE

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American Women's Network of Abu Dhabi (AWN) - (info HERE) - non-fiction

King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild

​In the 1880s, as the European powers were carving up Africa, King Leopold Ii of Belgium seized for himself the vast and mostly unexplored territory surrounding the Congo River. Carrying out a genocidal plundering of the Congo, he looted its rubber, brutalized its people, and ultimately slashed its population by ten million--all the while shrewdly cultivating his reputation as a great humanitarian.

Heroic efforts to expose these crimes eventually led to the first great human rights movement of the twentieth century, in which everyone from Mark Twain to the Archbishop of Canterbury participated. 'King Leopold's Ghost' is the haunting account of a megalomaniac of monstrous proportions, a man as cunning, charming, and cruel as any of the great Shakespearean villains. It is also the deeply moving portrait of those who fought Leopold: a brave handful of missionaries, travellers, and young idealists who went to Africa for work or adventure and unexpectedly found themselves witnesses to a holocaust.

With great power and compassion, King Leopold's Ghost will brand the tragedy of the Congo--too long forgotten--onto the conscience of the West.

To buy, click HERE.

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Abu Dhabi Book Club (info HERE) - non-fiction

Zeitoun by Dave Eggers

In August 2005, as Hurricane Katrina blew in, the city of New Orleans has been abandoned by most citizens. But resident Abdulrahman Zeitoun, though his wife and family had gone, refused to leave.

​For days he traversed an apocalyptic landscape of flooded streets by canoe. But eventually he came to the attention of those 'guarding' this drowned city. Only then did Zeitoun's nightmare really begin.

​Zeitoun is the powerful, ultimately uplifting true story of one man's courage when confronted with an awesome force of nature followed by more troubling human oppression.

To buy, click HERE.