UC Book Club - A Guardian and a Thief

You know Santa still has room in his pack for a few books for you.  Ask him to deliver A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar; then plan to attend the UC Book Club meeting on January 14, a Wednesday, at 4:30 pm via Google Meet.  January's short novel at only 224 pages alternates between 2 viewpoints.  Except which one is the Guardian and which one is the Thief?  As Claude Peck writing for The Minnesota Star Tribune puts it, this "'is a story of human imperfection, of bad acts done for virtuous motives.'"  Both characters are desperate for different reasons to escape Kolkata, India, during a near future drought and famine.  Peck says that emigration as "'today's political hot potato . . . is gorgeously humanized.'"  The Washington Post calls the book "'a perfect novel: 200 pages of tightly honed panic about life in a collapsing society. . . . The book’s simple structure feels reminiscent of a fairy tale, which helps account for the deep, visceral terror the story generates.'"

Other books scheduled for the Club as the days grow warmer in 2026 include The Correspondent by Virgina Evans, The Director by Daniel Kehlmann, and What We Can Know by Ian McEwan.

As always, email Kathy Fish at Kathy.fish [at] ucumberlands.edu (Kathy[dot]fish[at]ucumberlands[dot]edu) to be added to the Google Meet invitation list.